Stranger in a Strange Land
by joegood2003
Summary: Steve Rogers should have died seventy years ago. Now he has to adapt to a different society, one that demands he play the hero to a new generation. Maybe he can take his place in the 21st Century, but Steve doesn't think there is a place for Captain America. With apologies to Heinlein. Rated for language. Edited chapter one.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The Avengers belong to Marvel. This is just for fun.

**A/N: Edited version of my first chapter. No change in the plot.**

Chapter One: The Arrival

He should never have listened to the experts. In his defense, there really hadn't been a lot of time to do anything else. Normally, SHIELD had plans for everything, carefully choreographed procedures for dealing with every possible scenario. Naturally, the top people in their respective fields were always consulted, but he almost never let them have the final say. That was because the only way most people became experts these days was through tunnel vision, and the best solutions in his experience were those that considered the problem from a number of different viewpoints. None of which really mattered right now, because SHIELD was up against something which they had never really anticipated. Fury didn't really have any choice other then to listen to the experts, since there were not any plans on how to deal with a man literally frozen in ice for seventy years.

That being said, it was no excuse for not taking control after things went FUBAR about two minutes after Rogers woke up. Fury doesn't expect any operation to go perfectly (not that he ever tells his agents that), but that clusterfuck with the phony recovery room was a warning he never should have ignored. When an operation goes sideways right from the start, it rarely ever gets back on track. He should have thrown the whole plan out the window at that point, but his brief conversation with Rogers went well enough that he decided to stick with the script. The man had been subdued and cooperative, if not exactly forthcoming concerning how he was handling the time shift. Not really a big surprise that. Rogers came of age in a time when men didn't really talk about how they felt, especially to people they didn't know. Which as things turned out, was something Fury should have thought harder about, because he was totally that guy himself. Emotions could paralyze you if you let them, especially in his business. Almost all his agents would have sworn Nick Fury didn't have feelings, and that was the way he wanted it. Not because it was true, but because it was the only way he could make what he did work.

Seventy years. That one thought he holds in his mind as they bundle him into one of the black cars. His first thought when he realized that the recovery room was a setup was he had fallen into the hands of his bitter enemies. Somehow HYDRA had found the wrecked plane, had gotten to him before the SSR. The phony room with the pretty girl was a diversion, something they had dreamed up to keep him from realizing this. It doesn't take long after he broke out of the building to figure out that even HYDRA couldn't dream this up. After the bald guy gave him a heads up, he could see it, the ghost of his New York, even if it was buried under the garish display of enormous color movie screens and theatre marquises. Looking around, he saw that there are literally thousands of men and women jammed together moving past each other. None of the men had hats, while the women were dressed in ways that he would have never imagined.

"Are you alright sir?" Asked a voice to his right. A voice that he was startled to realize was a woman's.

"I'm fine," he muttered glancing around the strange vehicle, taking in the soft leather seats, the multi-colored displays arrayed along the front, and the seven other people that he was sharing the space with.

These people might not be HYDRA, but right now Steve can't help but feel he was still a prisoner. It's not something he liked. If he indented to make a move, this was the time to do it. He could see another car like this one in front of him, and he thought there was a third trailing behind. Still doable he decided, or least better then the alternative of waiting until they got him into that building he'd escaped from earlier. He had the advantage of surprise before, and that wouldn't be available to him again. So he took a peek out the side window, just to orient himself before he made his play, and all his assumptions collapse.

This place is supposed to be New York, but he knew it wasn't home. What the hell was he going to do after he got away? He didn't know anyone, didn't really know the city any more, and while he had no doubt that he can take on his escort, there was no way he can fight off an entire city. He remembers Dugan tell him during their first mission that if he wanted to live to the next one then he was going to have to learn to slow down and think. He's got to have a plan beyond just getting away. He settled back in the seat and tried to relax. The Red Skull was dead and America safe, but his mission wasn't over yet.

In the hours that follow Steve learned a few things. The most important was that while SHIELD might not be his enemy, he didn't think they are exactly his friends either. They wanted something from him. He not certain what, a conversation he had with Fury suggests some possibilities. The man assured him they have a plan, a blueprint for introducing him to the modern world. That Fury believed that there is still an important role for Captain America to play. Steve thinks the other man was trying to reassure him, but that's not exactly how it feels. First of all no mention is made of what that role would be. The other impression that bothered him is that it didn't sound like these people are giving him a choice. He also found it significant that there was no mention of his last mission, no attempt to find out what exactly happened on that plane, and especially what happened to the cube. The other impression that came across was that he was not free to come and go. Of course no one comes out and said this, but Steve doesn't think that they would react favorably if he told them he wanted to get out and see what this world was like for himself.

As things stood, it's not something he really wanted to do. That didn't mean that he was happy that he didn't have the option if (when) he wanted it. Of all the outcomes Steve had envisioned for himself, being a prisoner wasn't one he had thought much about. At the moment there was one thing he wanted desperately. The chance to be alone, so he could try to come to grips with this place and how he felt about what happened. What he got instead were hurried introductions to different people by Fury. He remembered the names and faces, but he tuned out most of the rest. Eventually Fury noticed his inattention, and after one of the best meals he'd ever had, they showed him to his room.

Actually, it was a suite. At least that's what they called it. The rooms were large, expensively furnished, and equipped with things that were incomprehensible to him. The bathroom alone was bigger then the bedroom he had shared with Bucky when he'd moved in with his friend's family after his mother had died. In another room there was an enormous bed, and the moment he saw it, Steve felt the exhaustion of dealing with the last few hours hit him like a punch to his gut. What the hell he thought, hadn't he slept enough already? Pausing only long enough to shed is shoes and socks, he slid between the sheets.

Late in the night, when the building settled into a low hum, he tried to make sense of how he felt, and failed miserably. It was just too much to take in all at once. Or at least too much for him. So instead he just focused on the thing that bothered him the most, the one idea that made him want to break things, starting with himself. It wasn't the seventy year jump in time. Part of him actually liked that, at least the part that used to read dime store sci-fi journals to escape what for most of his short life had been a pretty drab existence. Of course there was an even bigger part of him that was a little bit frightened by what he'd seen during his brief escape into the 21st Century streets of New York. Balancing that fear was excitement for an opportunity he could never have imagined. Besides, fear was something that he could work with, a feeling that he was used to fighting against. Nearly every mission he'd undertaken for the Strategic Scientific Reserve had been an exercise in overcoming fear. It wasn't where he was, or even when that made his chest feel tight, or caused that painful knot in the pit of his stomach. What really bothered him was that he was alive.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Colonel Phillips, Howard, Dum Dum, Gabe, Jim, Jacques, and Falsworth. Peggy. They were all supposed to be alive, and he was the one who was supposed to be dead. Steve had known from the moment he'd gotten on the damned plane that it was how things would play out. Right after she had kissed him. No he corrected himself, that wasn't really true. He'd been pretty damned certain since that first real operation he'd run for Phillips that he wouldn't make it all the way to the end. It wasn't something he thought about a lot, but it was probably the biggest reason he'd held himself back with Peggy. It was for her own good. At least that was the excuse he used. She didn't deserve to fall for a guy who wasn't going to see the end of the war. It was something he told himself every time he thought about how good it would feel to grab Peggy by the waist and kiss those tempting lips. Only one problem; it was a lie.

Not all of it certainly. Steve certainly wanted to shield Peggy, but there was also the desire to protect himself. What he did was hard enough without being distracted because he was mooning over a woman. When he thought about that now, Steve had trouble believing how he could have been so stupid. She had been a tremendous asset to him and his men, providing crucial intelligence that contributed to the success of his missions, and valuable critiques of their operations, especially the early missions, when Steve didn't really know what the hell he was doing. When it can right down to, the truth was more complicated. It was more then just the fear of distraction, or his concern that he'd break her heart by getting himself killed. Steve Rogers just didn't think he was good enough for a classy dame like Peggy.

At the bottom of it all, beneath all the excuses that he made in the eighteen months he had known her was that lack of confidence Steve always felt when he was with an attractive woman. The undeniable fact that he'd never been able to talk to one without sounding like an idiot didn't help matters either, and Peggy was a lot more then just a pretty face. She was smart, and tough, as well as beautiful, the perfect woman of his dreams really, but someone that he never would have had a chance with before the serum. Doctor Erskine's experiment had altered him physically almost beyond recognition, but it didn't change who he was on the inside. Erskine seemed to think that was for the best, had told Steve with his dying breath that he was a good man, and Steve wanted to believe that sometimes it might even be true. But there was nothing good about what he had done to Peggy.

It wasn't until those final desperate weeks of their long war with HYDRA that Steve let himself believe that he could live to see the end of it, and that there might be the possibility of a future for him and Peggy. He couldn't think of anyone he would rather share the rest of his life with, and she'd been giving cues that she might feel the same way. So why the hell did he wait? There were plenty of chances during that time, and even during those last horrible days. How could have failed to say anything when she came to comfort him after Bucky died? Or after the final briefing when she walked him to his bike and wished him luck. Or in the corridor after she'd taken out the HYDRA goon with the flame throwers. Or when she'd grabbed his collar and laid one on him right before he'd jumped onto Schmidt's damned plane.

And then there was that last chance, as he forced the monstrous machine toward that gleaming sheet of ice. The last chance he'd ever have to tell her, and all he could talk about was a dance they both knew was never going to happen. Steve couldn't believe how stupid he was. How gutless. Part him wanted to believe that Peggy knew. She was smart, and he wasn't exactly trying to hide his feelings at the end. But even if she did, it's no damned excuse at all. When he needed to step up and be a man, to tell her how much he loved her, he just didn't do it. It was something he was going to have to live with for the rest of his life.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Behind Enemy Lines

There were two people standing on either side of his door when he opened it. One of them was the woman who'd sat beside him on the ride back from his breakout. The other was a guy who had him by two inches and looked like he ate nails for breakfast. That word popped into his head again. Prisoner. He wondered if any intelligence about him had survived, because there really should have been at least twenty people out here if they knew anything about him at all. And they should have had their weapons ready.

"How long have you been out here?" He asked, pitching his voice toward sleepy.

The girl just smirked, and then she did something he wasn't ready for. She gave him a slow once over and the flashed a predatory grin. "It's ok sir," she finally answered. "There's a schedule, with rotating shifts. We've only been here a few hours."

"So you want to tell me why?"

"Director Fury just wanted to make sure there was someone around in case you need any thing," the woman answered.

"That's really nice of him," Steve answers blandly, and the man does something with his eyes, and the woman giggles, and Steve is content to let them think what they want to, at least for now. "I was just going to try and find where they serve the food," he states after a few seconds.

Actually, he's ambivalent about eating. He honestly didn't feel quite right when he woke up, almost like he had the flu or had eaten something that didn't quite agree. Since he knows that can't be the problem, the only thing he can put his finger on is that he needs to put food in his stomach. The problem with that is he doesn't really feel much like eating at the moment, with his head still spinning about Peggy, and about the future, and what these people want from him. But he remembers Dugan admonishing him to eat up after a particularly grizzly afternoon, reminding him that there was no guarantee when they'd be able to catch another meal.

"We can bring you something sir," the man mutters, and Steve just shrugs, while wondering just how big a secret he's supposed to be.

Then he fires off a list of what he would like that's about half as long as he'd normally eat if he were on base, but still leaves his minders with their mouths hanging open. Before they can say anything about it he retreats into his room and shuts the door.

After he eats everything they bring him, he washes the dishes and sets them in the sink to dry. Then he takes a little time to think about his situation. There are boundaries here, probably very specific things that he is not allowed to do. Like leave his room without an escort. The first thing he decides on is finding out what they are, and how much he can stretch them. He prepares a list of things the he wants. These include art supplies, work out gear, some clothes that don't say SHIELD in large bright letters, and some novels that he wants to read now that he isn't preoccupied with killing Nazis and HYDRA fanatics. While he is intensely curious about all the changes that have happened since he went into the ice, he does not include information concerning that in his request, because he figures that this is something they actually want him to know. When the time comes to do that, he isn't going to let SHIELD decide what he should learn. He looks at his list and adds one more. Soap and shampoo that doesn't smell strange. After a moments consideration he adds something else, figuring he might as well go for broke.

When he pops his head out the door, the girl and the guy are still there. He flashes them a big smile and asked the their names. They introduce themselves as Agents Stan Harris and Liz Fitzgerald.

"I'm Irish too," he remarked with a laugh. Then he handed Stan the list and turns to go back inside. When the beefy SHIELD agent puts a hand on Steve's shoulder to stop him, Steve whirls so quickly the man takes several steps back.

"I'm sorry sir," Liz breaks in, but he can tell by her voice that she really isn't. "But we have orders to bring you to see Doctor Jennings."

"You have a full day scheduled sir," Harris adds, drawing himself up to his full height. Steve has to struggle not to laugh.

"Type that schedule up son," he says, the smile gone. "And I'll decide what I have time for." Then he shuts the door in their faces.

It doesn't take long for him to get a reaction. He's in the middle of his second set of pushups (three hundred…just to gage how close to normal he is…at least normal for him), when the door swings open and an obviously unhappy woman tromps into his quarters. Which was something he really didn't expect. Not the woman part. It's plain even to Steve that women are an integral part of SHIELD. It's that she barged in without knocking, and he's stripped to the waist. He really wishes that she had bothered to knock before she invaded his space, because it kind of punches a big hole in the pretense that Steve is not a prisoner, something he have thought these people wanted to preserve.

"Just who the hell…" she starts to sputter, and then her voice suddenly cuts off as he rises from the floor to face her.

And she's just staring at him with a slightly stunned expression, and it takes him a few moments to realize that she is looking at his chest. Probably just like he was once riveted by the sight of Peggy that time when she was caught in a thunder storm, with her blouse absolutely drenched and sticking to her in all the right places. Steve is pretty sure he ended up looking a lot longer then this woman does, because it only takes a few seconds for her to recover and resume her rant.

"Would you mind explaining to me what you're doing?" She demanded, crossing her arms in front of her chest. It's plain to see that she's prepared for an argument, so he decides to give her something else.

"I'm Steve Rogers," he responded softly, sticking out his right hand with a wide grin. She stares at it for longer then she should and then offers her own.

"I'm aware of that," she answers shaking his hand. "I'm Maria Hill. Director of Operations for SHIELD. What I'd like to know is why you are refusing to be cooperative?"

Maria Hill is a slim woman of above average height who is very attractive (are there any unattractive people working here at all he wonders), and is used to giving orders. She also doesn't like it when someone is not willing to do what she wants, but then Steve can't remember any officer who did.

"Is that what you want Miss Hill? Cooperation. Because it seemed to me that you were just expecting me to do as I was told."

"What's wrong with that Rogers? As a soldier, I thought you would be used to obeying orders."

"I sure am ma'am," he answered firmly. "Only thing is, I don't remember you being in my chain of command."

"Are you sure that's really what bothering you soldier," she responds after a few seconds. "Or is it that you just don't like taking orders from a woman?"

And he can't help the chuckle that escapes, because now he's pretty damned sure none of these people know anything about his war time service. "Nope, that's really no problem at all ma'am," he declares, observing the slight grimace in her expression at how he addresses her. "I spent most of the war taking orders from a woman, even after I ranked her."

"Why would you do that?" Hill asked, clearly confused.

"Because she knew what she was about, and the only thing I really cared about was getting my job done."

"We'll I've got a job to do too mister. So I'd appreciate a little…cooperation." She pronounces the last word with an expression that reminds him of someone biting into something bitter, and Steve almost laughs. He doesn't think that would have gone over too well.

"I'll do what I can," he answers, and when he says the next part, his tone hardens. "Just as soon as I get that stuff I asked for, and that schedule."

For a moment there is an expression of anger on her face, but it quickly disappears. Steve is impressed with her self control. Then she nods tightly and turns to leave. He waits until she is out the door and then calls out to her.

"And ma'am…the next time you want to pay me a visit, knock first." Then he closes the door on her reply.

The schedule comes with his lunch, along with some of the things he asked for. There are clothes, but he can't figure out which are for working out as opposed to every day use. Finally he decides on the baggy pants that have a stretchy waistband, along with a fresh SSR t-shirt. New toiletries are also provided, and they don't stink nearly as much, along with pencils and a couple of pads for drawing. The paper is remarkable, and Steve is strongly tempted to blow off their program and work up some sketches, but ultimately decides that would be a bad idea. These people obviously want his cooperation badly, and he figures it be stupid not to provide it, as long as it's on his terms. The schedule lists a lot of things he'd rather avoid doing, but there's some stuff he doesn't mind mixed in. He decides that too much cooperation isn't really good either, so he picked two things; physiological testing and a session with Doctor Jennings, who was the official SHIELD shrink.

He goes to Doc Jennings first. She is a fortyish woman with fairly plain features, except for a figure that Steve might have found distracting, if it weren't for the bulky clothes she was wearing. She's the first woman at SHIELD that doesn't do a double take when she sees him, and that relaxes him a little. Her voice, which he finds soothing, does the rest. Unlike the SSR shrinks that he had talked to occasionally, she is in no hurry to get him cleared for action again. He spends most of the half hour answering gentle questions about his life before the serum, mostly centered around his childhood. He can't figure this angle since he was pretty much a nobody before he became the successful result of a crazy experiment. The only time he gets anxious is when she fires off a question about the here and now when he stands to go.

"Tell me Steven, do you think it will ever be possible for you to consider the 21st Century your home?"

No he wants to say, and it's on the tip of his tongue, but he ultimately doesn't. He has a feeling that such a response would not help him get out of here. Besides, he really doesn't know the 21st Century outside of this building. He needs to find out what it's really like before he can decide something like that.

"I'm here Doc," is what he finally decides on, "I don't see as how I got much of a choice."

Next stop is a gym, where he spends nearly an hour working on various exercise machines. After he breaks the second one, they send him into a hand ball court. There's a machine that fires tennis balls at him so fast that it actually stings when one smacks his arm. So after he's gauged the speed, around ball number six, he doesn't let that happen again. It becomes pretty boring after a while, so he starts plucking the balls out of the air when they wiz past. After a few minutes of that, the disgruntled operator of the machine accuses Steve of mocking him, and the procedure comes to a halt. Then they lead him over to another device.

After he lies on a padded bench, they fiddle with something he can't see, then some guy in a lab coat tells him to start, so he grabs the pair of handles and presses up. There's probably three hundred pounds of weigh on it, so really it feels like nothing at all. After about ten seconds another white coat (a woman this time) explains that he should do reps until he's tired. So he starts into it, and he has to admit the up and down motion does make a difference, sort of like a feather versus a paper bag. After about five minutes he decides this is even more boring then the tennis balls. After ten things become considerably more difficult. Not because he's getting tired. His nose itches damn it, and the only thing he can think to do is pull one hand down from the bar to scratch.

"What are you doing?" One of the white coats shouts, and Steve doesn't bother to answer, because that should be obvious.

After a few more minutes apparently even the white coats can't take it anymore, and someone calls a halt. Steve sits up and yawns, before becoming aware that there must be twenty people gathered around him. Most of them are staring. A guy with dark glasses wearing what looks like a sleeveless shirt that shows off his impressively muscular arms grabs the handle of his machine and jerks the weight up with a grunt. After a few seconds he lets the weights fall with a crash, then he looks at Steve for a long time before walking away.

They have a long list of other tests, but he's feeling more then a little like a rat in a maze and begs off. Back at his room the pair of agents standing by his door has abruptly grown to six. He waves at them on his way in, then pops out a few minutes later with a long list of what he's like for supper. He might not feel tired after all that, but he finds that he is pretty hungry. After he's finished, he digs out the pencil and the biggest pad of paper. It's been a few months since Steve had done anything but doddle for the guys or draw maps, but he just can't bring himself to do the only thing that he has any real interest in, which would be a portrait of Peggy.

Instead, he decides to map out his new home. He had spent a year going to night school learning about commercial drawing before he ran out of money. He had intended to go back, but after Pearl Harbor his free time had been consumed with finding a way to get into the war. But he'd learned the basics pretty well, more then enough to draw a simple floor plan. The other thing he had going was something the serum had done for him. Erskine had told him the transformation would effect every part of him, that he would be stronger, faster, and smarter. But the Doc had never exactly spelled out how the smarter side of it worked. Steve just figured the obvious, that he would suddenly have a much bigger vocabulary, and would certainly be better at math. Neither proved to be true of course, and it took him a few days to work out what was different. As it turned out, he'd had a pretty good memory before they'd pumped him full of the super juice, but now he couldn't forget a thing. It was useful most of the time, but there was also plenty of stuff he'd seen during the war that made him wish his memory wasn't so good. But when it came to drawing maps, it was the bee's knees.

The map however, was a big disappointment. He hasn't been many different places in this building, and most of them are located on the floor he's living on, which is probably not a coincidence. On the plus side, he can get out of the building if he feels the need by just retracing the route they used when they brought him in. The only complication is that he'd need one of those shiny cards the agents swipe whenever they get into an elevator. He sighs and scratches the back of his neck. Steve has no doubt he can get one, but punching out one of the SHIELD agents isn't something he wants to do, especially when he considers that quite a few of them are women. Shaking his head, he sets the map aside.

He just doesn't know what to think about his situation. While he has no doubt that he's not free to leave, it's not something he really wants to do anyway, at least until he figures some things out. They haven't asked him to do anything that he had to refuse, but he needs to figure out what he's going to do when that happens. With a sigh he rubs the back of his neck.

Ever since the serum, he's been typecast for breaking things. It took Philips quite a while to figure out that Steve had a brain along with all the muscle. Early on he and his men took their orders like good soldiers, and made their own plans with Peggy's help on the side. The top brass didn't like that much, but as long as the missions succeeded there wasn't much they could say. And when the generals did gripe about being ignored, Steve found the easiest way to deal with them was to just play dumb. Even after Colonel Philips figured it out, most of the other head honchos didn't have a clue that he wasn't as dumb as a bag of rocks. Which was ok with Steve. He really didn't mind being underestimated. In fact, it had made his job a hell of a lot easier. Right now he thinks that maybe that's his best tactic with SHIELD as well.

* * *

It's nearly midnight before Fury's chopper sets down on the roof just long enough for him to jump out. Right now he's not a happy spy master. He'd been looking forward to a few hours of sleep when Hill had called, but after a brief conversation, he agrees to come back from Washington for a consultation. As it turned out things were both better and worse then Hill had hinted over the phone. Captain Rogers was being less then cooperative, which isn't something he had expected. The man had seemed like a straight arrow according to his record. But then Fury really hadn't read that much of it. There was over five hundred pages (apparently even in the 1940's bureaucracies where concerned with covering their collective asses), and at the moment he feels like a juggler with too many flaming torches in the air as it is. He's beginning to wonder if not looking at all of it was a mistake. But right now the real problem is the two people who are supposed to be running this op. Fury had known that Hill and Jennings didn't get along, but he'd thought they'd be able to set that aside for this particular project. One glance at the two of them as he drops into his chair is enough to tell him that was wishful thinking. On the positive side, no one had been killed yet.

As he listens to their complaints, Fury wonders if he is going to have to replace one or possibly both of them, because neither woman seems to actually give a shit about what the other one is saying. Hill is angry with Rogers for refusing to cooperate, with Fury for keeping her in the dark about a lot of this, and especially with Doctor Jennings, because all of this is basically her plan. Jennings on the other hand, doesn't really care about what SHIELD needs out of this. Of course one of the reasons for that is she doesn't know. Neither does Hill for that matter, not really, and Fury would just as soon keep it that way. It's not that he doesn't trust Maria (Jennings is another matter, she's a civilian), it's just that part of this involves the biggest secret that SHIELD has, something the organization has spent nearly seventy years concealing. Only a small number of people know the whole story, and he'd just as soon not add anyone else to that list if he didn't have to.

"Alright, I've heard enough," he finally says, when it's obvious that he's going to have to settle this. Then he focuses Maria first. "You're the one who thought I needed to be here Agent Hill, so please explain why."

"Sir, isn't she supposed to be facilitating Captain Roger's cooperation? I'd like to know why that's not happening."

"This is absurd," Jennings countered, glaring at Hill. "The man has experienced something for which there is no precedent. You should not expect this to work to a schedule."

"Sorry Doctor Jennings, but that doesn't cut it," Fury answered, keeping his voice calm. "We know that it's going to take time to bring him into the 21st Century. We realize that Captain Rogers has a lot of issues to work through, but that doesn't change the fact that we have a limited amount of time to get this done."

"Director Fury, you will recall that as a Psychiatrist my first duty is to my patients well being. I will not be…"

"Excuse me Doctor," Fury interrupted, "but we've had this conversation before. I'm sure you remember the part were I mentioned that it's imperative that we establish some trust with Rogers before the rest of the world figures out he's alive. Captain America back from the dead isn't a secret even SHIELD can keep for very long."

"Well Director, if you want this man to trust you then you are certainly going about it the wrong way. I am sure Mr. Rogers already realizes that you have placed stringent limits on his freedom. You would be mistaken to underestimate his intelligence."

"I'm sorry Doctor, but that can't be helped. He's just not ready to face the outside world on his own. Besides, once he walks out the door, any chance of keeping his existence a secret is gone."

"Pardon me sir, but that might happen sooner then you think," Hill mutters. Then she goes on to relate the very public display of Roger's abilities that occurred just a few hours ago. When she's done Fury is left massaging his forehead in a futile attempt to quell the headache he feels coming on.

"Could one of you please explain how this happened?" He demanded, in that quiet tone of voice that Hill recognized as the first tremors before the eruption.

"He won't follow the schedule," she answered, shaking her head. "When he showed up for the tests, they weren't ready, so that just had him work out in the spa."

"The spa?" Fury grunted, taking a deep breath.

That was the popular nickname for the private training facility SHIELD had set aside for use by their most important agents and executive personnel. He never used it, and to his knowledge neither did most of the people it was reserved for, preferring the larger, better equipped training facilities that were available on nearly every floor of the building. SHIELD did not skimp when it came to training, not on his watch.

"Who was there?" He asked feeling a little more hopeful that maybe this could be contained.

Hill slipped a single sheet of paper from the thick bundle on her lap and slid it across to Fury. There were fifteen names on the list, not counting the scientists. "Most of them came in during the testing," she remarked with a shrug. "Pulled in to witness what Rogers was capable of by others who couldn't believe what they were seeing. I've talked to all of them, so they know to keep their mouths shut. Barton isn't happy. Thinks we should have informed him about Rogers."

"Does he know?"

"I don't think so, but he's not stupid." Not to mention he was partners with someone who knew everything, who didn't give a damn about SHIELD rules, and didn't like keeping secrets from people she was loyal to.

"This cannot be allowed to happen again," he declared, in a tone of voice that promised dire consequences if it did.

"We can tighten things up sir," Hill answered, "but better security isn't going to matter much if Captain Rogers doesn't fall in line."

"That's a problem you and Doctor Jennings are going to have to solve," Fury responded. "I want a plan of action by the time I return. That gives you forty-eight hours ladies. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting in London in less then seven hours."

"Sir, if I could have just a moment more of your time?" Hill requested as Fury rose from the chair to slip his jacket on.

"Make it fast Maria."

"Rogers sent this over earlier today," she said, handing Fury another sheet of paper. "Most of the requests were not a problem, but I didn't respond to the last one. I'm thinking that maybe we should."

"He wants his possessions back? The stuff he had on him when we found the plane?"

"That right sir, Here is the inventory."

Fury quickly skimmed the list. Uniform (in tatters), boots and glove (the same), a compass, and of course the shield. There were some other incidental things, such as 45 caliber ammo (but no gun), along with a few maps, a lighter, and a code book. He handed the paper back to Hill with a shrug.

"We can't let him have the shield, at least not yet. But I can't see the harm in giving him the rest of the stuff he wants."

"I think that would be an extraordinarily bad idea Director," Jennings declared, her eyes fixed on Fury.

"Come on Doc," Fury shot back, heading for the door. "You said yourself that we needed to build up trust with him. This is going to help. Besides, none of it is actually dangerous. What's the problem?"

"That list of Captain Roger's possessions is incomplete."

"Exactly what is missing Doctor?" He demanded, with a strong feeling that he wasn't going to like the answer.

"I asked that one item not be included in the official inventory," she answered. Reaching into a pocket, Jennings produced a small, round, plastic container. Popping the top off she spilled a single red capsule onto his desk. Fury was pretty damned sure that he knows what it was. He asked her anyway.

"Potassium cyanide. I believe they referred to it as a kill pill."

**A/n: Thanks for your comments Kitty-on-Crack, MidLifeCrisis, and Random Sith Lord. Next Chapter Ziva is up, and another Avenger makes an appearance. Please send be some comments and let me know what you think.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Recruiting Trip

"Why didn't you say something about this?" Hill accused, her gaze fixed on that red capsule

"I didn't think it was relevant to his present situation," Jennings answered carefully, after scooping the pill up and returning to the plastic container.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Fury demanded.

"He did not actually have the poison in his possession Director. Therefore, I saw no reason to inform you of it's existence."

"What do you think now Doctor?"

"They are his personnel effects Director, the only remaining tangible link to a world that is lost to him. Perhaps he merely wishes them returned for sentimental reasons."

"Or maybe he asked for everything so he didn't have ask for something in particular," Fury answered, with an edge to his voice.

"Then give him everything except for the capsule. If he protests then we will know."

"I don't think so Doctor. I do not think it's a good idea to play any more games with Captain America."

"Very well. I shall ask him directly then. While Rogers does not appear to me to have lost hope, I have been wrong before. He is a very difficult person to read."

"How so?" Fury asked, with what he thinks is an impressively indifferent voice. Because the idea that Jennings can't get a handle on Rogers is something he hadn't expected. Sure it's been only a couple of days and two conversations, but he's seen her get better results with less.

"He is from a different time Director Fury, a different culture. He does not demonstrate the type of cues that I would normally use to gain insight into what he is thinking."

And that's it for him, the single point were he decides to do what should have been done three days ago, right after Rogers made a mockery of their detailed plan to ease him into the modern world. Things need to change. Right now they're all just reacting to him, and if this latest little problem is any indication, things are just going to get worse. Right now he needs a game changer.

"I think it would be best if someone else has that conversation with Rogers," Fury says, and when Jennings starts to protest, he stops her with a look. "I need you for the long run Doctor. There are a lot of ways that this could go wrong. Whether he's really thinking of using that pill or not, trying to talk about it might set him off. If he ends up shutting you out, there really isn't anyone we can find to take your place."

"Well someone needs to have this conversation with him," she protested.

"And someone will, just not you."

They spent a few minutes bickering about it, but while Jennings wasn't happy with his decision, Fury thought his excuse of her need to stay engaged with Rogers over the long run had kept the angry recriminations to a minimum. That it's the truth at a certain level doesn't hurt. While he has at least a dozen people that he could turn to if he had to replace Jennings, there is a reason why she's here and they are on his emergency list. She does try to find out what he has in mind, but he has no difficulty in deflecting her inquiries. As she stands to go, she places the plastic case on his desk, and doesn't seem at all surprised that Hill stays.

"What are going to do?" Hill asked in a wary tone of voice after the door shuts.

"We need to be sure about this," he said, picking up the plastic container.

Fury isn't actually all that worried Captain America will actually try and swallow the kill pill. He knows enough about the history of SSR to realize that such things were pretty much standard issue on the kind of operations Rogers was involved with. Even today, some SHIELD agents on especially hazardous missions ask for one, just in case. The difference is that it was their choice now, which doesn't make Fury feel much better.

"Do you really think Rogers is contemplating suicide?" Hill asked in a dubious tone.

"No. The real problem is one that Doctor Jennings just mentioned, which is we have no idea what the hell is going on inside his head."

"The why don't we just ask him sir?" She demanded, a hint of frustration in her voice.

"For the record, I thought Doctor Jennings' approach was a pretty good idea. She thought that we could get him to open up if he still thought he was in the 1940's."

"I thought it was bullshit sir. I mean, how long were we ever going to be able to maintain that cover."

"Just long enough to get in a few hours of production discussion. That was all I ever wanted. The problem was we never considered the alternative."

"What if he finds out right from the start?" Hill mutters, shaking her head. "No wonder he doesn't trust us."

"I don't think he would regardless of what happened Maria. One of the things we counted on was Rogers being willing to cooperate. Unfortunately, he's a lot less trusting then we were let to believe. I think that it will come eventually, but it might take a while, and I'm afraid we can't afford the time."

"So what are you going to do sir?"

"We need to find out at least a little bit about what makes this guy tick."

"I thought Jennings was going to do that for us?"

"This demands a different skill set then she possesses. It calls for a person who can get people to want to talk about things they'd normally want to keep secret."

"No," Hill answers immediately, "we don't need that sir. We need someone who can gain his trust."

"She can do that too."

"I think you're going to be very sorry if you bring her in on this," Hill insisted.

"She get's results, and right now that's what we need," he answered. He could tell from Hill's expression that she still wasn't convinced, but then again he wasn't either. At least not completely. "Maria, she knows Steve Rogers isn't the enemy."

"I guess that's something," Hill answered dubiously. "The only thing is, I can't see how you can say that. I've known Natasha for almost five years, and I'm still not sure what she thinks about me."

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't consider you a threat Maria," Fury responded, with a faint smile, "because if she did, you'd probably be dead."

* * *

Phil Coulson loves his job. He get's to see the world (actually is seems to be mostly the deserts and underground caverns of the world), meet a lot of interesting (if anti-social) people, and the pay is pretty damned good as well. It's never in the top five for why he stays, but he likes to dress sharp and some of his hobbies consume an inordinate amount of his disposable income. Who knew that the market for Captain America memorabilia would go up when the housing market tanked? Not that spending the money bothers Phil much. He buys the cards, the posters, and even the limited edition figurines because Captain America is one of the reasons he took this job all those years ago. Which is why he's kind of pissed off that Fury won't let him even say hello.

Phil wouldn't say he was actually shocked at the news. Working for SHIELD does tend to make you a little jaded when it comes to things like this. Two weeks ago he was watching a couple of Norse gods fight it out in New Mexico. So the idea of a guy frozen for seventy years kind rolls off his shoulders. Except this guy is Captain America, and Fury doesn't want him any where near the man. When Phil asks for a reason, Fury tells him that he's too close to the situation. Phil thinks that's garbage. Distancing himself has never been a problem, and Fury knows it. In fact it's the reason why he's become Fury's troubleshooter, because while Phil Coulson certainly has emotions, he never lets them interfere with the work. It's a bitter pill that Fury trusts him with so much, but shuts him out of something like this. So he does the usual thing when he's pissed at Fury. He hits the road.

It's not hard to find something to do since Fury has him involved in so many ops. On the west coast, there is human trafficking (but not for the usual reasons…these thugs only want mutants). Shield has a team in Vladivostok to monitor attempts to smuggle biological weapons out of Russia. There is a rumor of a new terrorist group trying to set up a headquarters in Yemen. He hears the news of Captain America's breakout while slipping tea with a tribal leader. He only wishes he was there so he could laugh in Fury's face. After a quick stop in London to talk with the station chief, he's on a flight to DC. This is more pleasure then business and involves one of the other reasons that Phil loves his job. He gets to interact with beautiful women like Ziva David.

It's even better when the woman is someone you actually admire. He's known Ziva for nearly eight years now. It was a SHIELD mission in Turkey, trying to stop someone from selling plutonium to the wrong people (which would be anyone). The information had come from Mossad. Because they couldn't afford to be caught acting in one of the few Muslim country that wasn't actively hostile to Israel, they came to SHIELD with a request that they deal with the situation. As a condition, Mossad had insisted on an observer. Clint and Natasha were not pleased, but as things turned, they were damned lucky to have Ziva, since Romanov's Turkish wasn't nearly as fluent as she thought. When the plutonium was safely under lock and key and the bad guys in custody, Nat brought out the vodka and even Phil got drunk.

He didn't see her again for nearly two years, and it's not under the best of circumstances. Fury gives him the news about her brother Ari and he finally tracks her down at Dulles. The flight with her brother's body is ready to depart, so he only has a few minutes. Most of that time is spent with Ziva and Phil embracing tightly as she cries on his shoulder. After she returns he checks in on her occasionally, and after her first year at NCIS he offers her a job. She smiled with pleasure at the offer, but said she didn't want to do what SHIELD does any more.

He tries a few more times, and when her team leader takes a flier to Mexico, he thinks he might have her convinced. Only the guy comes back and after a few weeks she turns him down again. They have a long conversation at the Smithsonian two months later (Captain America exhibit), and it's quite apparent that Ziva is happy at NCIS, but it's more complicated then that. There is a loyalty to her team, and especially to Agent Gibbs that Phil understands. When she gently but firmly deflects his suggestion that they get together a few months later, he thinks he knows why. She doesn't want anything to do with his world, and when Phil considers how badly she was fucked over by her own father, he can understand her reasons. So Phil does what he does best, he distances himself from the situation. He doesn't see her again for a year, and then it's at Dulles again, when she comes there to have lunch with him while he's waiting for a connection to Turkmenistan. While he's happy he called, Phil doesn't know if it was the right thing to do. After Somalia he thinks seeing him is the last thing she needs, so he settles for a phone call after she is back for a week. That conversation doesn't go well, which is why he was surprised when she called him out of the blue four days ago and asked if they could meet.

He says yes, and then he calls Fury, and by the end of the day he has put together a job offer that he thinks will intrigue her, especially considering what happened between Ziva and Ray Cruz. While he would never use it as a argument to convince her to accept the position he has in mind, he thinks Ziva will come to that conclusion on her own. Eventually. That might take some time, because right now he's pretty sure that another relationship is the furthest thing from her mind.

Ziva is only ten minutes late when she slides into the stool next to his at the bar. Phil had reserved a table at a place that improbably bills itself as an Australian Bistro. Hence all the empty seats. Which was a shame really since he knows the guy who'd owns the place and the food is pretty damned good. When he turns to offer his hand she smiles and kisses him on the cheek.

"Hello Phil," she says, and her smile is genuine if a little guarded as well. And it doesn't really make him relax at all, because he'd seen her reflection in the mirror over the bar as she had approached. Her expression had not been exactly a happy one.

Once they settle into their table (back corner, with no window in their direct line of sight), he asks her to order the wine, and takes the opportunity to closely observe her. The most obvious thing is that she hasn't been sleeping. Her eyes are tired, and the fatigue is evident even before she stifles a yawn. Beyond that she looks very much like the Ziva he knows, except for one thing. This is a woman who doubts herself. He can see it in the set of her shoulders and the way her eyes slip past his, instead of meeting them directly. It confirms what he noticed during the short trip to the table. The Ziva he encountered in Turkey had a way for strutting across a room, with shoulders throw back and eyes flashing. Phil finds himself regretting that Cruz is in prison. Killing him there would be messy.

"You look good Phil," she says in a low voice, and he has to stifle a chuckle.

"Of course I do, I'm sitting across the table from you." She laughs and that makes him feel a little better, until she leans toward him and her smile disappears.

"Why have you been avoiding me?" It's a question he expected to come up, just not right away. It's another thing he likes about her, she's direct.

"Sorry Ziva, but as I recall, you're the one who wanted to avoid me."

"That's bulldung and you know it!"

"I think the word you're looking for is bullshit."

"Exactly. I admit to not wanting to discuss with you why SHIELD would be a bad career choice. However, I did not intend that we should no longer be friends."

"Look, I understand why you didn't want to work for us. You were right."

"I am?"

"I get that you didn't want to do the same things for SHIELD that you walked away from doing for Mossad. I think I even understand why. If your father had pulled a quarter of the crap on me that he did to you, I would have quit too. Either that or put a bullet in his head."

She grimaced at that last part, but Phil wasn't about to apologize for speaking the truth. The fact that Eli David was the head of Mossad didn't make what he did to her right. Screwing over the people who worked for you was bad enough. Screwing over your own daughter? The man was a dick.

"So if you understand then why?"

"Because any kind of relationship with me means you also have a relationship with SHIELD. At least that's how certain parties will see. Considering your situation, I decided that was a problem you didn't need to have."

She stared at him for a few moments, then slowly shook her head. "You are an ass Philip Coulson. Why would you think I would care what conclusions ignorant people might draw concerning our meetings. Unless of course you are in a relationship." He could help but notice how the bitterness of her tone when she spoke that last word.

"You should care Ziva. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that even after seven years, there are a lot of individuals who remember your time with Mossad."

"You are seeing someone," she countered, a sly smile on her face and the bitter tone gone. "Is it Natasha? Is that why you stopped contacting me, to save me from her?"

"What? No!" He exclaimed a little too forcefully.

It's not like he's never thought about it. Phil might be some what cautious, but he isn't dead. But even above their very different personalities, being in an intimate relationship with someone in the business is something neither one of them would easily consider. The fact that they work together on a regular basis makes the notion impossible. If there is one trait they both share, it's professionalism. Phil is pretty sure that Ziva has a similar attitude. That doesn't mean she intends to let him off the hook.

"So you have thought about it," she teased. And even if he's a little embarrassed, Phil is still glad that he made her smile.

"Sorry Ziva, I don't date co-workers," he replies easily, and her smile abruptly fades.

"You are seeing a civilian?" She asked in disbelief. He's a little surprised that she doesn't see what is obvious to him.

"I really don't see any other option Ziva."

"Yes of course," she mutters, then the smile makes a comeback. "So tell me about this person."

"She's a musician, plays the cello professionally. I heard her play in Albany, asked her out to lunch." He paused for a second to look down at his hands. "She's fun to be with, has a great sense of humor, but we're lucky if see each other once a week."

"Does she know?"

"Are you kidding? Emily thinks I'm an insurance adjuster."

"Now you are the one who is kidding. She thinks you investigate car accidents?"

"Actually, it's large industrial accidents. I also do consulting work on the side." Damn she was good he realized, when he reacted to the dubious expression on her face by trying to defend himself. "It's actually a persona I use a lot. After all, there do tend to be explosions where ever I go."

"So what are you going to do when things get serious. Some how I do not think that Emily will appreciate being lied to."

"Ziva, you know as well as I do that things won't get serious. I can't let that happen."

"Then why?"

"Because she's fun to be with. The fact that I happen to like classical music doesn't hurt either." He paused for a second to drain his glass of wine. "Look Ziva, I like what I do, and I wouldn't change it for anything. But it's kind of nice to be normal for a while too."

The waitress arrived before Ziva could comment, but Phil had little difficulty imagining what she would say. That he wouldn't be able to live a normal life unless he stopped working for SHIELD. He wondered whether that was one of the reasons why Ziva had walked away from Mossad. Besides getting out from under Eli's thumb. For Phil, normal just didn't hold much of an attraction. He figures he'll probably regret it when he's too old to do the work. There is a brief vision of sharing a room in an assisted living facility with Fury that causes him to shudder.

"What's wrong Phil?"

"Too much AC," he answers, but she is still looking at him suspiciously, so he decides to deflect her. "Why did you call me Ziva?"

"Do I need a reason to see a friend Phil?

"No, you don't, But that doesn't mean that you don't have one."

"Why does SHIELD have me under surveillance?" She asked and ok, that was the biggest reaction she'd ever seen from him. She didn't think his eyebrows were capable of movement.

"Ziva…," he started, then pause for a deep breath. "I wouldn't call it surveillance. No one is actually watching you."

"Do not chop words with me Philip. I know for a fact that you have been monitoring me through my computer for quite a while now, so just tell me why."

"Somalia," he answered in a frustrated tone, and really it was exactly the answer she had expected.

They had not had many chances to talk since she had escaped from that hellhole, but nearly every single one of them had started with her fending off his abject attempt to apologize for not even knowing what had happened to her. When she tried to point out that going months between conversations was normal for them, he seemed to get even more frustrated. Which was why Ziva had been pleased when he eventually dropped the subject the last few times they had talked. Until McGee discovered her laptop had been hacked while he was doing some upgrades for her. When he confirmed that SHIELD was the source of the Trojan, she was not surprised.

"Phil, while I appreciate your concern, I am also insulted that you think me unable to protect myself."

"It's not that Ziva."

"Well then what?

"More for my peace of mind then anything else."

"That is very sweet of you," she answered with a smile. Then her face turned serious. "However, I must insist that you stop." He nodded, seemingly relieved that she wasn't angry with him. That quickly faded when she asked him the question she actually wanted him to answer. "Did you know about Ray?"

"I knew about the relationship," he responded, quickly enough that it raised suspicions.

"Is that all?"

"God Ziva no…if I had known he was dirty…"

"He was not," she cut him off, her voice a soft monotone. "It was the work I think. He got too used to lying. There is also the fact that no one at the Agency was willing to hold him accountable. All they cared about was results."

"Maybe," was the only word he would offer.

Because he's not convinced what happened to Ray Cruz was a simple case of a good man gone bad. There are a lot of reasons to do the kind of work that Phil does. Most of them are bad ones. He really wants to find out the reasons Cruz had for screwing up so badly, and not just because Ziva is a friend. He knows there is sometimes a lesson to be learned from something like this, a cautionary tale that you can use to your advantage; especially when dealing with people who think that it will never happen to them. But he wants more then that; he wants to know how this guy went wrong, because while he can understand how easily to can happen to you under the right circumstances, what he can't figure is how Ziva didn't see it coming.

When the food arrived they set to it with surprising gusto, interspersed with occasional conversations concerning some recent investigations that Ziva had been a part of. She was pretty good at telling a story while not giving away much information, and several times she had Phil laughing hard enough to shed tears. The end of the meal had them both quietly sipping coffee, until Coulson pulled two flash drives out of his pocket and slid them across the table.

"What is this?" She demanded. The devices looked identical, except for color. One was red, the other black.

"The red one is for Director Vance, complements of my boss," he answered blandly. He just shrugged his shoulders at her questioning look. "Sorry Ziva, I don't know what's on it."

"Are telling me that Vance and Fury are communicating again."

Now it was his turn to be surprised. There weren't many people who knew about that. "Not so much until recently. Frankly I'm glad they finally patched things up. SHIELD has enough problems with Federal bureaucrats as it is."

Ziva nodded, slipping the thumb drive into an inside pocket of her coat. "And the other one?"

"That one is for you. It's an offer of employment with SHIELD."

"Phil, we've been through this before," she said in an exasperated tone of voice.

"Actually, we haven't," he answered.

"I do not wish to go back to my former life," she responded emphatically. He nodded, and when she started to go on he shook his head.

"Let's take a walk." Then he was gesturing for the waitress and pressing a credit card on her. Within minutes they were out into the cool crisp evening. Ziva fumbled for her purse, but Coulson just smiled, waving off her offer of money.

"Relax, I'm expensing it."

They walked several blocks in uneasy silence. At least that's how Ziva felt. Phil on the other hand seemed improbably calm considering the discussion they were about to have. What she is feeling is more confusion then anything else, because she believed Coulson understood her well enough that they were never going to have this particular conversation again. Ziva had thought that she had made herself clear the last time he had brought up the subject, that she would never again be a tool of violence for others to use and discard at their whim.

It's not that she regrets her service with Mossad. Most of what she did was necessary to protect her country. She was the sharp end of the spear, shaped by her father from the time she was a young girl to do whatever was needed to keep her people safe. Even today she would make any sacrifice, pay whatever price she had to defend Israel from her enemies. What she will never do again is leave that choice up to anyone else. If she must kill, it will be because Ziva David has decided that she must, not because someone has ordered it without explanation. There is only one exception she has allowed to this rule, only one person to whom her allegiance has been given without reservation. The reason for that is her absolute trust that Gibbs would never use her the way her own father did.

Ahead she can see his destination; a small park maybe a thousand feet square, with nothing more then some monkey bars, a set of swings and a public restroom. There are maybe five picnic table scattered in various locations, and Phil makes for the closest, swinging his leg over one of the benches. She takes the other side of the table, mildly amused that he feels the need to preserve some measure of privacy for a conversation that will be over very quickly.

"Phil, I am happy at NCIS," she begins after a few seconds. "My boss is a man I deeply respect and care for, and the other members of my team are close friends. I cannot think of a more congenial working environment. And even if this were not so, what makes you think that if I will no longer kill on the orders of my own father, that I would do that for you."

"Actually, SHIELD isn't really interested in employing you in that capacity."

"I do not understand."

"We already have plenty of people who do that Ziva. Besides, at SHIELD we believe in hiring people for positions that play to their strengths."

"And you do not feel that my abilities are best utilized in killing people?" She asked, with a mixture of relief and trepidation.

"That's correct. Frankly, you're much better as an investigator then you ever were as an assassin."

"Thank you Phil," she answered with a smile. "You do not know how happy it makes me to hear you say that."

"Well it's true. I wouldn't be making this offer if it wasn't."

"You are saying you want me to perform the same duties for SHIELD that I now do for NCIS?" Phil nodded and Ziva took a deep breath. She had a lot of questions, but one in particular needed to be answered.

"I am flattered that SHIELD would consider me for this, but as I said earlier, I am happy where I am now. I can not image being part of a team that would be better then the one I have now. Why would I want to change that?"

"Because you won't just be part of a team if you come to work for us Ziva. You'll be leading one."

Phil actually feels pretty good about this. He's managed to surprise Ziva David again. Even better, she hasn't shot him down yet. Her head is slightly titled to the right, but otherwise her face might as well be made of stone. That's alright though, he's perfectly content to wait on her as long as it takes to get an answer. Of course that was exactly the moment that his phone began to buzz loudly. Since he had turned it off at the restaurant, that could only mean SHIELD. Not really a surprise, since no one else had this number. He started to apologize to Ziva, but she just waved him off with a chuckle. There was a single text, just one short sentence, and it wasn't even from Fury.

_**Coulson, get your ass back here.  
**_

_**Natasha**_

Phil pockets the phone with a grimace. Apparently the Widow is mad at him. In his experience, that's never a good thing.

**Thanks to endgame for pointing out that mistake, and also to Kitty-on-CRACK, Acacia 118, and A Contradiction for their reviews as well. This Chapter was going to be even longer, so I split off some material into the next update. Unfortunately, it was all about Steve. So this chapter of my Cap centric story doesn't have any Cap at all. Sorry about that, and I promise to make it up on the next update. In the meantime, please send some reviews my way, and let me know what you think.  
**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Surveillance

The first two times Fury called her, she didn't even pick up. It was his fault really. After her last op, he'd demanded that she take at least a week off before doing anything spy related. The fact that she'd only argued with him for maybe thirty minutes was a better gauge of how tired Natasha was then those dark patches under her eyes. Fury told her that he didn't care what the hell she was doing in Montreal, as long as it had nothing to do with SHIELD. Now that he needed her, she was apparently determined to follow those orders to the letter. So he asked Barton to send her a text and when she finally called Fury quickly discovers he has a fight on his hands. As things turned out she wasn't pissed because he called her, it was because he'd forced her to go in the first place. Not that she wants anything to do with Cap.

"Why don't you ask Coulson?" She muttered, and he hears ice clinking in a glass, which sounds like a damned good idea right now.

"He's too close to the situation," Fury grunts back, rubbing his forehead.

"Would you stop with that bullshit," she retorts, clearly irritated. "You should have given this to Phil the moment you knew it was him. I can pretty much guarantee things would have gone better."

"I'm really not interested in talking about what went wrong," Fury huffs after taking a deep breath.

"I really don't have that much time."

"Natasha," he growls, but all that warning elicits is a soft chuckle.

"If I were you, I'd try something different than your usually crap. You're the one who screwed this up Nicky."

Fury bit down on his response. She's trying to push his buttons now and he's not going to give her the satisfaction. If he has to eat a little crow to get her help, he'll gladly reach for the salt and pepper. In the end Natasha tells him that she will think about and asked for a summary of everything that's happened since they chiseled Cap out of the ice. Two hours after that she texts him an affirmative and he smiles. Then his phone beeps again and Fury ends up feeling faintly relieved as he pages through the list of her demands.

Number one is every piece of information SHIELD has on Captain America. That's really not a problem, since Natasha already knows the biggest secret concerning Steve Rogers' activities during the war. She knows about the Tesseract. Probably had long before she ever came to SHIELD. That means he doesn't really have to explain why this is so important. Until the day they found Rogers in the ice, SHIELD had complete control over anyone who knew anything at all about the damned thing. Now that Captain America is back from his frozen prison, that's simply not true any more. Once his existence becomes public knowledge the string of lies that had kept the Tesseract a secret for so long was going to unravel. Before then, Steve Rogers had to be convinced that it was better for the world that the source of the Red Skull's power be kept a secret. Beyond anything else, this was the reason why Nick Fury was obsessed with getting Cap integrated into the 21st century in general, and with SHIELD in particular.

Phil Coulson was her second demand. She's been back at SHIELD for nearly five hours when he joins her, not quite able to disguise his glee. Obviously he'd already talked to Fury, who still thinks that Phil is the wrong person for this, but no one knows the ins and outs of the Cap story better then him. That's the upside of being obsessed. The moment she'd been asked to do this Natasha had decided she had to have Coulson. The huge stack of documents delivered from the archive just confirmed that. No one at SHIELD knew more about Rogers then he did, and right now she wanted that knowledge at her disposal, along with a man who's judgment she respects.

"So what's the play Tasha?" He asks with a smirk, needling her with that ridiculous nickname that he stole from Barton.

It's so familiar that she nearly smiles despite the irritation, because it serves as another reminder of how badly it could have gone for her if the second person she'd met at SHIELD had not been Phil Coulson. In the normal course of their work Natasha executes his plans, and both of them are good with that, mainly because Coulson doesn't have an ego that bruises when she decides to follow her instincts and ditches whatever it was he wanted her to do. It's that quality that allows him to take the role reversal in the present situation without batting an eye.

"You tell me Phil," she retorts, gesturing to the screen in front her, where the object of their little op is displayed in living color. And she can't help the chuckle that escapes at the look on Coulson's face when he realizes who she is spying on.

The third thing that Natasha had demanded from Fury (or the fourth, after reimbursement for the rest of her vacation) was video surveillance on Captain America. At first Fury refused, and she was about to step into a cab outside SHIELD headquarters before he finally called her and agrees. She spent the next five hours observing Rogers with cameras situated in each room of his residence.

According to SHIELD, Steve Rogers was supposed to be the perfect soldier. He took orders without complaint, never talked back to his superiors, and did exactly as he was told. It didn't take long to realize that she wasn't seeing that in him. The man she'd been watching didn't look like someone waiting for his next order, as much as a man who is caught behind enemy lines. Most of the time he was either pacing back and forth across the main room or sitting on the largest couch, staring out the window. It's all pretty boring, which is the essence of expertly done surveillance. The only exception to this was when he stripped his shirt off to do calisthenics.

Mostly he does sit-ups or push-ups. Hundreds of them. Very rapidly and with seemingly no effort at all. According to his profile, the serum had heightened his speed, strength, and powers of endurance considerably beyond that of normal human capabilities. What isn't in the file was that it also transformed him into a perfect physical specimen. Rogers had the kind of body that women (and some men) dream of but never ever get a chance to see. Natasha considers herself something of a connoisseur of the male (and female) form, and she's never seen a physique that could compare with his. She has to wonder if Coulson feels the same way, given how he's staring at the screen.

"Damn it Phil," she mutters with a smirk, "would you stop drooling."

"Why the surveillance?" He asks, dragging his gaze from the monitor to her.

"Recon. I need to know if he's pissed off or just annoyed. How well he sleeps and whether he eats. How he feels about being kept here and if he plans to do something about it." She paused to study his reaction. "I told Fury that you could approach this like a professional."

"So this isn't a suicide watch? You're not worried about the kill pill they found."

"Not really," she answered in a derisive tone of voice. "Considering what he was up against, I'd ask for one if I were in his place."

While Natasha isn't as knowledgeable as Coulson, she knows enough about Hydra to be sure that be taken captive by them would not be acceptable. Torture wasn't just a means of extracting information for people like them. It was entertainment. To her the cyanide is a perfectly rational precaution, one that she would certainly she would ask for herself if there any possibility she might encounter the people she used to work for. One of the few certainties that Natasha had fixed in her mind was that she would never allow herself to fall into their hands again.

"So what have you learned so far?" He asks, looking at the monitor once more.

"I'm not sure yet," she answers.

She turns her attention back to Rogers. He's sitting on the couch again, eyes focused on some sheets of paper spread out in front of him There was a tension in his body, like a coiled spring waiting for the right moment to release, while his face has assumed a mask of supreme indifference to his circumstance. Maria's account of her confrontation with him made it clear that he didn't trust SHIELD and didn't really accept their authority. Natasha had to wonder if it was something deeper then that.

"How many ops did Rogers run against Hydra?" She asked softly, her hands carefully folded on the desk in front of her.

"According to the official records it was seven."

"I don't think so. I see too much experience for that."

"Like I said, that's according to the official record. Supposedly there were other operations directed against Hydra's infrastructure; eliminating supplies, destroying equipment depots, ambushing weapons convoys. Killing scientists who worked for Hydra where ever they could be found. Certainly Captain Rogers and his men were heavily involved."

"Then why wasn't any of it included in this so called official history?

"No one really knows," Coulson answered with a shrug. "We're not even sure who prepared it."

"Margret Carter?"

"That's my guess Natasha. There was no one person named, but I think it's safe to assume that along with the suppression of any information concerning Hydra, that she was responsible for this as well."

She looked at the screen again. He was still staring at the papers. Natasha tapped out a command, and the camera zoomed in on them. It was a surprisingly detailed map of all the places he'd visited inside SHIELD headquarters since he had regained consciousness. Every room he'd been in, every door he had passed; all done to scale. There was even a separate drawing of the area immediately around the elevator, which was the only possible route to the ground floor from his location.

"Fuck," Coulson grunted behind her. "What is he trying to do?"

"Planning an escape."

"Where would he go?"

"I'm sure he has no idea Phil, which is probably why he actually hasn't done anything yet."

"But why?"

Natasha is about to answer that she is sure she doesn't know, but suddenly she does. Damn but they were all idiots. "What was Rogers doing seventy-two hours ago?" She demands angrily.

"He was sleeping in the recovery room," Coulson answers, after glancing at his notes.

"No Phil, he was assaulting the last Hydra base. He was killing the Red Skull. He was crashing a plane into the ice." Coulson shoots a glance at the monitor, then turns his head and stares at her clearly confused. Maybe Fury is right she thinks. Maybe he can't distance himself.

"Think about what happened to him. When he put that plane into a dive, Rogers knew he was going to die. Then he suddenly wakes up with people he doesn't know telling him he's jumped seventy years into the future."

"What are you telling me, that he doesn't believe us?"

"Would you?"

"Tasha, he was outside."

"For twenty minutes," she sneered, clearly angry. "They should be taking him out for a couple of hours each day." Natasha took a deep breath. It wasn't that she was upset on account of Rogers. Stupidity always pissed her off. "He may believe it consciously Phil, but I see a man who has not fully accepted his situation. A man who is still in the mission."

"How do we change that?"

"That's simple. How do you know when an op in finished?"

Coulson furrows his brow for several seconds. Then he looks at his partner and grins.

* * *

He wakes up screaming Peggy's name, to the sound of splintering wood. There are nightstands on either side of his bed, two small tables really, with one drawer apiece. The one by the right side is in pieces. Steve looks at his hand and then back to the scraps of wood on the floor. He took a few deep breaths, and buries his face in his hands. Just moments before, he'd been in the plane, fighting the Skull again in his dreams, just like it was seventy-two hours in the past, seventy years ago. Only this time the bastard is winning, slamming hammer blows into his chest and face, knocking Steve back into the cube. As soon as he touches it his body begins to disintegrate, pieces of him leaking into a sky that's splashed with color molded into fantastic shapes, smeared across the heavens. He can hear Schmidt laughing, but when he looks it's not the crazy German he sees, it's Peggy. She begs him to stay in a quiet voice that he somehow hears above the discordant roar of his own fragmentation. There is no pain until the final moments, which seem to stretch on and on as his body is ripped asunder. The last thing he sees before jolting back to consciousness are Peggy's tears. So he sits on the edge of the bed fighting to control the tremors until the sound of someone banging on his door finally gets his attention.

After snatching a towel from the bathroom to wipe the sweat off his face, he hurries out into the living room just in time to see the door swing open. Agent Harris is just stepping into the room when Steve plants himself in front of the man. When their eyes meet, Steve can see the fear. Apparently the word has gotten out about the tests they ran on him the other day. Which might explain why SHIELD left him alone yesterday. Steve had expected more attempts to examine him, or at least another talk with the shrink. What he got was a few books by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the three meals he ordered. He wasn't exactly unhappy to be left alone, but the situation still puts him on edge.

"Please stand aside sir," Harris demanded, but the attempt to assert his authority doesn't really work, mostly because he took two steps back after he said it.

"No," Steve answers firmly. "This is my room. and I want you out of here now."

He can see the doubt in the other mans eyes. He can also see more agents behind him and he suddenly has a bad feeling about this, because while Harris would probably back down on his own, Steve doesn't think his back up will let him.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Demands a voice, and the reaction is instantaneous. Harris straightens up and backs away, and he can see the others doing the same.

"Sorry sir," Harris squeaks, "but we have orders to make sure…"

"Shut up Harris," the voice interrupts, but the tone isn't exactly harsh. More like amused then anything else. Then the group of agents makes room and the source of the voice saunters into his view. And it's that guy from the other day, when he was lifting the weights, who was dressed in a sleeveless shirt.

"Doesn't really look like he needs your help," the man says, after winking at him. "So why don't you kids go play some where else." One of them starts to protest, but quickly shuts her mouth when the man turns to look at her. Steve watches them go with relief, which quickly fades when his savior steps across the threshold, shutting the door behind him.

Before he can think of anything to say, a hand is thrust at him and Steve takes it, more out of instinct then anything else "Clint Barton," he states, as they shake.

"Steve…Steve Rogers."

"You ok Rogers?" Barton asks after a few seconds, and there's no demand or emotion in his voice, just a simple request for information.

"I'm fine," Steve answered, his voice a little horse. "Just a bad dream. Your friends overreacted."

"We're SHIELD, that's what we do," the guy retorts with a smirk. And the next second that smile is gone. "You get them a lot?"

"Not really, at least not when I'm on a mission," Steve answers, a little wary about talking to anyone about this. For the most part it's actually true. He almost never gets one in the field. It's afterward that they come, sometimes night after night, until even he is groggy from the rest denied. Barton just stares at him for a few seconds.

"So you gonna talk to Doc Jennings about?" Barton finally asks, turning away and glancing around the room.

"Does that really help? Talking about it?"

"Not much."

"Then why…"

"Cause once in a while it does. Think about it." Then he flashed Steve a quick half grin, and lets himself out of the room.

He spends a long time in the shower, letting the hot water slowly relax his body. After that he takes the pad of paper and pencils in hand and begins to draw. At first he does quick sketches from his new world, simple drawings of Fury, Hill, and some of the other agents he's seen. Next he works on a more complex subject, using an impressionistic approach of garish colors and indefinite shapes to fill out the picture of the new version of Times Square he still can't get straight in his head. It's dawn before he sets the picture aside, not satisfied with what he sees. It's the kind of work that really needs watercolors to look right, and he isn't much good with those. He's never had enough money to work with canvas and paints. He stands up to stretch and then reaches for his pencils again.

He's only used models a couple of times, and while that resulted in some of his best work, it isn't an option with a subject that he hasn't seen for seventy years, even if it's only a few days to him. Steve has drawn Peggy at least a dozen times, but he's never been happy with the finished product. He can't seem to capture that almost playful smile that is the counterpoint to the iron determination she exudes like a cloud of perfume. And Peggy was determined about so many things.

Victory was of course at the very top of the list. If they didn't win against the fiends they were fighting, none of her other dreams would be possible, including whatever ones she might have had for them. So she never would have considered anything with him before they had won through, and it was something he respected, and certainly agreed with. It would have been a distraction, and even worse a threat to her tenuous position with the SSR. Because while there were plenty of things Steve could have gotten away with, any scent of impropriety would have had Peggy on the first plane back to London. But like the other excuses he had, that never should have been a reason for not letting her know.

Peggy takes shape in the paper, the sweet curve of her mouth, those expressive eyes, the dimples that form when ever she favored him with a smile. He struggles a bit with her hair, which has always been one of his vexations, but this time it comes out better then most, and he feels like he's on a roll and really getting her. Steve can practically feel the crispness of the freshly starched white collar that he fills in around the slim column of her neck. After nearly ninety minutes he sits back to take Peggy in. While her expression is playful, the underlying fierceness of her personality still lingers in her eyes. And suddenly he knows that this isn't just something he made up in his head. It's part of a memory.

There was a party, one of those rare celebrations they allowed themselves in the wake of a particularly hard mission. None of them were exactly happy; it was more like a feeling of relief. Relief that they were alive, relief that one more of Schmidt's bases was destroyed. That the war was a fraction closer to being over. Philips provides the booze and then made himself scarce. They're just sitting around, Steve watching as his men began the long task of drinking themselves into a stupor when she roars into the room with a phonograph, a platter of perfectly cooked steaks, and her smile. Steve remembers everyone of those smiles and this was one of the best, because while she smiled at every one of his men, he could see for the first time that there was a difference when one was directed at him. His hands gently brush over the image, then he turns the picture over. It's a sight he'll never see again, except in his art.

He has just about finished packing the art supplies away when he hears a soft knocking at his door. Answering was something he didn't want to do, but they had keys so it really wasn't much of a choice. It least he be in control if he opened it. On the other side of the door he expected Hill or maybe Fury ready to give him a butt chewing over what happened last night. Instead, there are two people he has never seen before. The man wore a sharp, dark blue suit, and a bland expression, though Steve could something fighting to breakthrough his nondescript exterior. The woman took his breath away.

She was beautiful in a way he'd never seen before, with a perfect face that was set in a flawless mask, green eyes boring in on his own, and he suddenly remembers who he is and has to fight hard against the urge to look away. Because whoever this woman is, she is just too dangerous to take eyes off of, no matter how pretty she might be. Then her perfect pink lips part into a smile and meeting her gaze becomes both harder and easier. In spite of wariness he feels himself relax, and that becomes a piece of cake when he finally realizes that she's wearing at outfit more suited to his time then her own.

It's a dark green pleated woolen skirt that ends about mid calf (and matches her eyes). A wide black belt cinched around a surprisingly narrow waist. The snow white blouse peaks out of the top and cuffs of her matching wool jacket. Even with the two inch heels of her oxfords, the woman is nearly eight inches shorter then his six foot three, but he doesn't think his size would be any advantage with this one, if it wasn't for the serum. It's her stance he abruptly grasps, the way she holds herself, like a predator under complete control, or a snake ready to strike. He sees so many conflicting signals that he barley hears her introduce herself, and awkwardly extends his hand when she offers her own.

"Agent Natasha Romanov," she states, in a flat, husky voice.

"Pleased to meet you ma'am," he mumbles, "I'm Steve Rogers." She nods and steps back to make room for her companion.

"Agent Phil Coulson," the man says, with a tone of voice Steve recognizes. Admiration. It's something he's never comfortable with. He doesn't think he deserves the attention he gets for doing his duty.

"There are some things we need to discuss with you," Agent Romanov declares.

He takes a deep breath and slowly shakes his head. "I'm sorry ma'am, but I don't really feel like doing much of anything for SHIELD right now."

"Excuse me Captain Rogers, but has anyone seen fit to ask you anything concerning you last operation?"

"No Agent Coulson," he answered softly, with something like confusion in his expression. "No one has."

"That's why we're here Captain Rogers," Natasha tells him, after nodding to Coulson. "You need to be debriefed."

"Why would you want to do that?" He asked in a dubious tone of voice. "According to Fury, that was over seventy years ago."

"That's really not true for you, is it." Natasha states, in a way that makes it clear she is not asking him a question.

"No," he whispers looking at the woman, fighting to contain the emotions of three days ago. Especially that final minute.

"There was never a final report Captain," Coulson says, just before the silence becomes uncomfortable. "We need this sir, and we think you need it too."

Steve doesn't think he can hold it together if he actually says anything, so he just nods. Then he steals a look at Romanov and wonders if she knows. While no one would ever confuse the two of them, the SHIELD agent is dressed in a manner very close to Peggy's preferred style. Except of course for the color. Peggy told him more then once that she detested wearing green.

**Thanks for all the feedback. Please keep the comments coming, they are great motivation. Sorry about the lack of Ziva, but she's in the next update and will be fairly regular after that.**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Turning Points

They were seated at a steel and plastic table, sitting on the kind of chairs that cause meetings to run on time. Natasha was fighting the urge to reach down and scratch her right thigh while silently cursing Coulson's need for authenticity. While she wasn't really sure if dressing in 1940's period clothing had made any difference at all, she had no doubt the effect would have been the same if her skirt had been cashmere instead of wool. Phil was certain her ensemble was the reason that Rogers had decided to cooperate and Natasha didn't feel the urge to argue, even if she suspected that it might have had something to do with her as well.

She was familiar enough with the look that had flashed across Rogers' face to know there was more then a deep appreciation of her fashion sense to it. Natasha decided that when the time was right, she would ask him which mattered more, or if either matter at all. Right now it wasn't relevant, because Captain America was sitting across the table waiting to be debriefed. She looked at Coulson, then focused her attention on the large blond man who sat hunched over in his chair.

"You may proceed Captain Rogers."

Steve took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. With the single exception of his mother's death, it had been the worst day of his life, and he needed to lay it to rest. Ever since he'd woke up in that damned room he'd felt like he was still on point, still trying to finish this mission. Even if the thought of talking about it made him feel sick, it was something he wanted to do.

"What do you want to know?" He asked, surprised that he sounded so calm.

"Pretty much everything," Agent Coulson answered, after glancing at Agent Romanov. "As I said before, no after action report was ever written. Besides a few testimonies we have from the soldiers who were involved, the only thing we know for sure is that the mission was accomplished and you didn't survive."

"Ok," Steve muttered, sitting back in his chair. "The truth is we were caught completely flat footed. SSR didn't know anything about Schmidt's plan until we captured his chief scientist."

"That would be Arnim Zola."

"Yeah," Steve nodded. "When we finally got him to spill his guts, there was less then a day left before the Valkyrie was going to be launched."

"So you're saying you didn't really have any time to plan the operation?" Natasha asked in a disbelieving tone of voice.

"There was a meeting that covered the basics. It probably lasted an hour. But beyond that, no. There wasn't a lot of time for us to flap our gums about it."

The operational plan he went on to relate was all about contingencies, because none of them really trusted too much of what Zola had said. There is no time for a rehearsal, no time to find any more men then the mixed battalion of soldiers and commandos they had on hand. As it turned out, there was a desperate scramble to get enough gliders and planes, so that when they arrived at their destination in the Alps, there was less then an hour left before Hydra unleashed their super weapons. When he tells them how the attack was supposed to go Coulson doesn't look happy, particularly when Steve explained his role.

"Wasn't that a big risk, allowing yourself to be captured? Who would have stopped that plane if you'd been killed?"

"It was never supposed to get in the air. Besides, I didn't think there was much of a chance I'd get shot outside the base."

"Why?" Romanov asked, tilting her head.

"Because I figured that Schmidt would want to kill me himself."

"And if he had?" Coulson demanded.

"Relax Agent Coulson," Steve countered, with a shrug. "I was the diversion for my men, and they were the diversion for the rest of the troops. It didn't really matter if we survived, it only mattered that the operation succeeded."

"So what went wrong Captain?" Natasha asked in a flat voice.

"According to Zola, Schmidt's plane needed at least thirty minutes to warm up before it could fly. Either he lied to us or the Skull lied to him."

At this point he paused to rub the back of his neck. Then he closes his eyes and told them the rest, leaving out the one thing that they didn't have a right to know. The cavernous hanger was a maelstrom of violence and death, with Allied soldiers fighting Hydra storm troopers, always at close range, often hand to hand. Steve could see the blood spraying and that hideous blue mist gently floating above the carnage. He plunged into the mad melee in front of him, shooting, battering, and punching any Hydra goons that try to get in his way. He can see the damned thing as it starts rolling down the long concrete and steel tunnel, can feel the sick churning of his gut that moment when he knows he'll never be able to catch it, feel the wind whipping past his face when Phillips flips the switch to send Schmidt's car into overdrive.

The softness of her lips on his before he launches himself into the air.

When he thinks about it like this, it's incredible how damned lucky he was that day, even if it's not how it seems at the moment. Telling the two SHIELD agents what happened after he got on the Skull's plane without losing it is an exercise in long pauses and talking in a quiet, hesitant tone of voice. By the time he'd reached the part about his final confrontation with the Red Skull, Coulson's mouth was hanging open and even Romanov's eyes had visibly widened. After describing their final battle and Johann Schmidt's fate he lapses into silence, unwilling to say anything else about his final minutes in the air.

"At least we know why we didn't find Schmidt's body in the plane," Natasha finally commented, after setting her pen down.

"It's really too bad," Coulson said. "I kind of regret not being able to dump him into an unmarked grave." Steve looks at him and slowly nods. The biggest regret he has about those last few minutes (except of course Peggy) is that he didn't kill that bastard with his own hands.

"Captain Rogers, Agent Coulson will be preparing the official report. Obviously it would be better if we had a written account from you to supplement this testimony."

"I can do that Agent Romanov, but not today."

"Take as long as you need sir," Coulson assured him, explaining that the document would take several weeks to compile.

"Thank you for your cooperation sir," Natasha added, looking down at the pile of papers in front of her. We know that talking about this was not an easy thing to do."

"Is there anything else you need?"

"There is one remaining matter we need to discuss Captain."

"Would that be the cube?" She nodded and Steve leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. "I was wondering when someone would get around to that."

"We know why is wasn't on the plane," she said, pulling out a photo and sliding it across the table for him to look at. It was a picture of the square hole it had burned through the steel skin of Schmidt's plane.

"So you're still looking for it." He said turning his gaze on the SHIELD agents. "You should stop."

"It can't stay hidden forever Captain," Coulson said softly. "Sooner or later the world is going to find out."

"Trust me Agent Coulson, the world will be better off if that damned thing is never found."

The two agents shared a brief glance. "We'd both like to offer our thanks on behalf of SHIELD for your cooperation Captain Rogers," Coulson intoned with a smile. "Now if you'll just step this way, we have some things for you." There was a door at the back of the room. Coulson opened it, beckoning Steve to follow.

It was small and sparely furnished space, with a large table in the middle. Steve could immediately see his things carefully arranged on the black table cloth that covered it. The uniform and gloves were little more then rags, the boots nothing but soles with a few scraps of leather attached. His forty-five was orange with rust. In the middle of it all Steve spots the compass. It's brass, so there no damage from the decades encased in ice other then a couple of more dents then he remembers. He reaches for it after briefly clenching his fist to still the tremor he can feel coming on. He thumbs the tiny latch and the cover springs open. Peggy isn't there. The picture is gone, apart from some tiny pieces of discolored paper. He takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. He knows it's stupid. There are probably pictures he can get to replace it, but he still feels a little bit like someone just punched him in the gut. He puts the compass in his pocket and turns to see Agent Romanov looking at him. He nods at her and she acknowledges his gesture with a tilt of her head. Then she shoots a glance at Coulson and he flashes a smile before stepping back out of the room.

"Your shield will be returned in a few days, she told him. "There is one other thing we found that isn't here," she continued, looking him directly in the eye. "But we're hoping it's not something you need at the moment."

He looks back at the table, but it still takes him a few seconds to work out what she's talking about. When he does his face flushes red. "Oh…you mean the kill pill?"

"Yes."

"Ok…I didn't…it's not something I ever intended to use Agent Romanov."

"Nobody ever does Captain."

"Yeah. It's just that my guys wouldn't carry one unless I did."

He remembers Dugan telling him to go fuck himself when he suggested that the rest of them had to have the damned thing when he wouldn't. When he'd tried to use his Catholic religion as an excuse, they'd all laughed in his face. Taking his orders on a mission was one thing, allowing him to decide this wasn't a thing they would accept. It was all rather theoretical really, since Steve couldn't imagine ever using it. When he asked the others, they told him the same thing, except for Bucky, who refused to say what he would do. After their third mission he wasn't so sure. There were stacks of bodies, people that no longer appeared to be human, who'd been burned and mutilated while obviously still alive. Steve wondered what a man would have to be to do that. But he no longer wondered why Philips wanted them to have the pills.

"I know Captain," Natasha said, in a tone of voice that made him think she probably did.

He really wanted to ask her why she would understand something like that, but it wasn't the kind of inquiry he felt comfortable making when he hardly knew the woman. However, there was a question he did need to ask, one Steve had wanted an answer to since they had bundled him into that car at Times Square.

"Am I a prisoner Agent Romanov?"

She stared at him for several seconds before her mouth quirked into a tight smile. "Prisoner? That's not a term I would use Captain Rogers."

"Are you saying that I'm free to just walked out into the street again? Because the last time that happened they sent eight cars full of people to bring me back."

"That room, the whole set up, it was a mistake," she replied firmly. "No one expected you Captain Rogers. No one is quite sure what we should do with you."

"So you're just going to keep me locked up until you figure it out. Kind of makes me a prisoner, doesn't it?"

"Like I said, not the right word."

"So what would you call it Agent Romanov?"

"Protective custody," she answered with a shrug.

"I don't get it. Exactly what do I need to be protected from?"

"It's a new world out there Captain Rogers. A lot of things have changed. SHIELD thinks you could use an adjustment period before you're ready to face it."

It did make sense he realized. The brief look he'd had after he broke out was like something out of a sci-fi novel, except for the absence of flying cars. How had Howard gone wrong?

"You might be right ma'am," he heard himself say. Still, he didn't want to make it to easy for them. "But I think I need a little more proof then just your say so."

"Of course sir." She answered with a nod. "Agent Coulson and I would be happy to provide this. Would tomorrow morning work for you?"

"My schedule isn't exactly full at the moment." She nodded and turned to leave. "Hold on a minute," he requested. "What do you have I mind?"

"Coffee."

"Exactly how is coffee going to convince me of anything?"

She didn't say a word. She didn't have to. The smile on her face told him everything he needed to know.

* * *

She was being foolish Ziva told herself, as she glided past the house for the third time, her Mini moving so slowly that it almost stalled. This was Gibbs, her friend and mentor, the man she trusted with her life. Just last week, she had spent the better part of an evening in that house slowly getting drunk on truly awful bourbon while she told him the tale of her disastrous relationship with Ray. Gibbs had listened silently for the most part, with the occasional muttered obscenity concerning the character of the man who had betrayed both his oath and her. When she was done there were tears in her eyes when the gruff man pulled her up from the stool where she was sitting and wrapped his arms around her.

The next mourning she'd felt better about things, despite the hangover. Typically of Gibbs he didn't make a fuss, other then to tell her that she could talk to him about this any time she wanted. Except that tonight wasn't about Ray Cruz at all, and that made all the difference. Tonight Ziva needed his advise on what to do about the job offer Coulson had dumped in her lap three days ago. She knows that Gibbs will give it to her straight regardless of his personal feelings, but she doesn't really want that, because she would never be able to live with herself if she alienated this man over something as petty as a better job.

His door was unlocked as always, the ground floor of his house mostly dark except for the single bulb burning in the kitchen. In any event, there is no need to search or call out, because Ziva knows exactly where Gibbs will be. The stairs to basement are immediately to the right. She pauses by the landing, deciding now would be a good time to make her presence known. As far as she knows Gibbs has never shot anyone for walking into his home unannounced. She has no desire to blemish that perfect record.

"Gibbs," she called out before descending the steps.

"Ziver," he answered, using the absurd nick name that makes her smile. "Kinda wondered if you'd be dropping by tonight."

She is about to ask why he would think that when his current project comes into her view. Gibbs is hunched over a large table, using a thick pencil to draw some kind of pattern on a piece of wood. There are need rows of stacked lumber along one of the walls, and what she thinks is a band saw on the right side of the table. None of this was here when she last visited.

"What is this Gibbs?" She asked taking it all in.

"Doing a little project for a friend of Director Vance," Gibbs rumbled, laying the pencil aside. "Guy is trying to get more toys into some of the hospitals, for the kids that have to stay long term. Leon ratted me out to him about my little hobby."

Hobby? More like an obsession she thought. There had never been a time she had visited that Gibbs had not been crafting some item from wood. At least he was no longer building boats. Though there was something different on this occasion. In the past he had disdained any device that ran on electricity, using hand tools exclusively to shape the wood. When she pointed this out he chuckled.

"Not gonna be able to make enough rocking horses if I stick to a hammer and chisel Ziver."

"Really? Rocking horses? I asked for one for Christmas once. My father declared the request to be frivolous."

"How old were you?"

"Three."

"Damn," Gibbs muttered, shaking his head. Then he walks over to the ancient, white refrigerator and pulls out two bottles of Sam Adams. She takes on gratefully, even if she would prefer a Chardonnay. At least it is not bourbon.

"Why did you think I would visit? Because of Ray?" She asked, not wanting to further a discussion of her childhood at this time. Or ever really.

"You and DiNozzo had been going at it pretty hard lately."

"What do you mean?"

"The arguments Ziva," he answered frowning.

Ziva nodded, suppressing a sigh. Today had been especially bad, being that the team had been stuck together the entire day, updating case files. On four separate occasions, Tony had tried to get her to 'talk' about Ray. How was she coping with what had happened, whether she realized it wasn't her fault. Encouraging her to remember that there were plenty of fish in the sea. She had barely contained herself from stapling his tongue to the desk at that remark. Then as they waited for the elevator at the end of shift, he had wondered aloud how she, a master spy and ninja assassin (in his words) had been fooled by a mere CIA agent. The bitter argument that ensued lasted until Gibbs had grabbed DiNozzo by the arm and hustled him out to the parking lot. They were still talking quietly when Ziva had sped by them in her Mini ten minutes later. Later she had regretted her anger, which had been directed at herself as much as Tony, because she had no satisfactory answer to his question.

"I am tired Gibbs," she muttered, after taking a drink of her beer. "Tired of Tony's incessant prying in my private affairs."

"We had a talk. Told him that he needed to give you some space." He paused, tipping back the bottle. Then he set the empty container on the bench with a loud thunk and fished another one of the fridge. "He's worried about you Ziva."

"I appreciated that Gibbs. I know that Tony cares. I only wish that he would stop being an ass about it."

"If he did, he wouldn't be DiNozzo."

She smiled at that and Gibbs chuckled in response. "I did not come here to talk about Tony or Ray Gibbs, I came to talk about me." She takes another sip of beer and he gestures for her to go on.

"Three days ago I received a job offer from SHIELD."

For a moment she can see the surprise on his face, but it's quickly gone. "Obviously you didn't say no."

"Nor did I agree," she countered, after taking a deep breath.

"Kinda surprised you'd have to think too much about something like this Ziva. Seems to me you've worked pretty damned hard to put that kind of a life behind you."

"If this offer had involved doing the kind of work that Mossad had demanded of me, you would be correct."

"What exactly is it they what you to do?"

"The same job that I do right now. SHIELD wants me to be an criminal investigator."

She tells him exactly what Coulson had told her; that SHIELD wanted to move away from targeted killing as a primary method in dealing with what they referred to as the "intractable international criminal element." While assassinating the leaders of these gangs was certainly satisfying, many groups had become too diverse and sophisticated for those tactics to be effective. Add to that the increasing resistance of national governments at what they perceived as a threat to their autonomy, and became obvious that a different approach to the problem was necessary. It was decided that SHIELD would need to utilize the local and international legal systems to bring these groups to justice. Hence the recruitment of individuals with a law enforcement background.

"Don't they already have investigators?" Gibbs asked, his voice conveying disbelief.

"What SHIELD has are spies Gibbs. While they are excellent at uncovering secrets, it is not in their interest to see those secrets brought into the public eye. Gathering evidence for a legal proceeding would only serve to blow their tops."

Gibbs smiled and shook his head. "It's cover Ziver," he chuckled. Then his face turned serious. "Gotta say I don't get why you'd want to leave NCIS and take the same job with an outfit like SHIELD. You, Tony, and McGee; you're the best team I ever had hands down."

"I have not accepted the job, at least not yet. And I would never leave the three of you to take the same position in any agency."

She pauses trying to swallow down the sudden nervousness she feels. It's mostly about his reaction, because despite what Phil has said to her, she is less then confident that she is ready for the responsibility of leadership.

"They are offering me my own team Gibbs."

Just the slightest hint of dismay showed on his face, and then it changes to something like chagrin. "Shoulda figured it would be something like that. Guess SHIELD is smarter then I thought."

"I actually am not certain that they are Gibbs. I do not know that I have the necessary experience for leading a team."

"That's a load of crap Ziva," he retorted scowling at her in a manner that almost made her giggle. That urge was quashed by his next statement. "You might not think so, but you're ready. Certainly a hell of a lot readier then I was when they gave me a team."

"I do not believe you," she says, in the same tone of voice she uses to warn a suspect.

"I was so damned angry back then," he muttered, looking away. "I wasn't ready to be what Mike Franks wanted me to be. He shouda never recommended me to be his replacement." Then he looks at again and she can see something like regret in his eyes. "You listen to people. Took me a long time to figure that one out."

"But you did," she answers, meeting his gaze. "You are the person I learned it from."

He nods and takes a swig of his beer. "You gotta consider what they're offering Ziva. It something you're gonna have to wait a long time for at NCIS."

"Because of my lack of seniority?"

"Pretty much." He told her, deciding that for the moment that would be enough. Ziva had other ideas.

"Please Gibbs. I know that a certain level of doubt lingers as to my loyalty, even though I have tried to make it plain to everyone that I no longer work for my father."

"Some people don't really believe that," he acknowledged with a grimace. "Doesn't much matter right now, cause Vance knows the truth and so do I."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

"We won't be around forever Ziva." He rubs a hand across his neck and shrugs. Gibbs honestly thought that Ziva had been aware of this.

She took a deep breath, and then smiled at him. "Thank you for telling me Gibbs."

"No need for that Ziver. You're family. Always will be. Don't go thinking that where you work is ever gonna change that."

"You are correct. You are all my family, and while I am interested in the challenge of leading a team, I am not sure leaving you to take this job is worth."

"I think you gotta consider it. Unless you're not sure these guys are being straight with you."

She offers a half shrug. "While I do not trust SHILED, I do not believe Phil Coulson would lie to me."

"Coulson huh," he responds doubtfully. Ziva told him about Phil several years ago, mainly by way of explaining why a man from a super secret organization infected her computer with spy ware. "You gonna talk to him again?"

"I am sure I will."

"Tell him you need to do it in person."

"Gibbs, I do not need you to vet Phil Coulson for me."

"Just want him to know that there are people looking out for you."

It would be amusing she decided, to see two of her favorite men meet for the first time. Although she wasn't sure if either would think it so. "Very well. However, I will make no promises concerning when."

"Make it soon Ziva. This isn't the kinda thing you want to drag out."

"He is a very busy man. I will see what I can do."

"If they want you then he'll find that time," Gibbs growls, and while they both know that she doesn't need his protection, Ziva is relieved she can share this with someone else.

Just so long as it's not everyone else. When she tells him that she would prefer to keep this matter from the others, he nods and pulls her into another embrace. When they finally pull apart Gibbs slides his hands to her arms, gently holding her in place.

"I'm a selfish bastard David, but that's something you already know. If you were just switching jobs, I'd try every dirty trick in the book to keep you at NCIS."

"Gibbs I…"

"No…just let me finish. Still not happy with the idea of you leaving, but like I said, I understand that this is something you have to look at. All I'm asking is that you take your time and make sure that SHIELD is being straight with you."

"I will Gibbs, believe me I will."

After muttered goodbyes, she walks out into the night. Once inside her Mini, she leans back on the cool leather seat, letting her mind wander. She does not know what she will do. Tony and McGee, Gibbs, Ducky, and Abby; they are much more then simply co-workers. They have become her family. Ziva does not want to leave them. She decides before that happens, SHIELD will have to convince her that what they offer is worth the price she will have to pay.

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews. Please continue to let me know what you think. Next chapter Ziva finally meets Cap! Sorry for the long wait.**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: Future Shock

**A/N: Obviously this story plays a little bit with the cannon established in the movie, in that Steve gets to know some people a lot earlier. I am not planning on any others changes at the moment, other then taking a closer look at some things that were not explained in the movie.**

The best job he'd ever had before the serum was selling shoes at a store in Queens. It paid him five dollars a day for ten hours work, but it was inside and he didn't need a lot of muscle to be good at it. Even with a full days pay, he couldn't have afforded the caramel nutty concoction topped with whipped cream that he supposes must contain actual coffee of some kind. He really shouldn't complain, because it's one of the best things he ever tasted, even if it isn't what he asked for, which was a large coffee, black.

Agent Romanov's response to that request had been to glare at him and fire off an order that made her sound like she was speaking a foreign language. When the cashier announced how much they owed, Steve is astounded by the amount. Instead of money, Coulson gives the man a small, rectangular, silver card. Later, when he could think about it, Steve understood that was the moment when he realized there would be no going back. That this was his world now, and he had no idea how he was going to live in it.

The short walk to the coffee shop had left him befuddled, and it wasn't any better going back. While Steve recognizes street names, it's more like the knowledge that comes from studying a map of a place he's never been to. He remembers thinking the same thing the last time he was outside, but then he'd been preoccupied with a different set of questions that mainly centered around the impossibility that he was alive. He still isn't completely ready to let those go, but right now he needs to concentrate on other priorities, such as the fact that he doesn't understand a damned thing about the world he inhabits.

There is so much he needs to learn, so many questions he wants answers to, that he doesn't even know where to begin. The one thing that sticks in his mind beyond the way women dress in the 21st Century, or the disrespectful way that men stare at them, or even the two guys he saw holding hands was how Coulson had paid for their drinks. He remembers the first few months after he and Bucky got their own place. It was just a tiny run down apartment, two small rooms with common bathroom at the end of the hall. Even that was more then they could afford. Every week involved scrambling to find cash to pay the rent, with enough left over so they could eat. There were a lot of weeks when they didn't quite make that. All he can think is now is how much easier they would have had things with one of those silver cards. When they make it back to SHIELD Agent Romanov slips away after a nod to Steve. He doesn't feel the need to tell her something that he is sure she already knows. He won't be going any where for a while.

It pretty much takes him a day to figure it out, because for a lot of it he's still convincing himself that all this is real. Nothing about where he is now fits into the life he had before he crashed that plane. None of it seems tangible to him; not the price of coffee, the way people dress, the tattoos, the automobiles, the buildings he sees or even place he currently lives, inside the headquarters of a super secret espionage organization that shares the first four floors with an accounting firm. When he asked Agent Coulson why SHIELD would do that, the man said it was a cover, something to keep people from looking too closely at the other fifteen floors of the building. When Steve responded that he didn't see how that was possible, Coulson remarked that most people just see what they want to see. Steve's pretty sure he's not one of those people. After all, he's been fighting against reality for his whole life.

When he was eight, a doctor told his mother that he had maybe six months to live. Ever since then he's been fighting against the circumstances of his life. He'd had to fight to get out of the orphanage, to scrap enough money together to live on his own, to make people see that he could serve his country despite his physical deficits. Before she had past, his mother had told him that if Steve wanted anything in life, he was going to have to fight for it. Most people who didn't know him (and that would be everyone here) assume that he'd only been fighting since the serum, but in reality Steve's whole life had been a battle. Just because he found himself displaced seventy years out of his time didn't mean that was about to change. He just doesn't know any other way to live.

Later that evening, after he'd sent away the SHIELD agent who came to take down what he wanted for supper, Agent Coulson came around to scold him. No, he wasn't sick Steve was forced to admit, just not really in a mood to eat.

"As I recall, you grew up during the Depression," Coulson responded with some asperity.

A few minutes later Steve found himself trailing behind the shorter man, who was leading him to the building's cafeteria. When he asked Coulson why they were eating there, the agent said it was ridiculous for him to order his food like he was a shut in. Since it was almost nine o'clock at night, he assumed they would have leftovers, but as things turned out the place was always open. Coulson just shrugged and mumbled something about multiple shifts in response to Steve's surprise.

Steve went for a light meal (four pieces of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, along with a salad, three apples, and half the choices on the desert menu). Coulson had a ham sandwich. They ate in silence as the sparse crowd of other diners divided their time between food consumption and staring at Steve.

"Don't let it bother you," Coulson said around another bite of his sandwich. "They're just a little curious. Mostly because you're eating enough for three. There's also the fact that Director Fury thought that hiding you from an organization of spies was both doable and a good idea."

"So why the change Agent Coulson?"

"One of the better qualities about the Boss is his willingness to acknowledge his mistakes. Eventually. Agent Romanov and I convinced him that you'd never acclimate to your new environment without a greater degree of exposure."

Steve nodded and took a big bite from his apple. "So what does SHIELD plan on doing with me?"

"I really can't talk about that right now Captain Rogers," Coulson confessed.

"But you do have something in mind."

"Director Fury wants to talk to you about it himself. After you've had a chance to get your bearings."

"What makes you think I ever will," Steve retorted in a bitter voice.

"You're Captain America," Coulson answered, in a tone of utter certainty. When Steve's gaze meets his eyes from across, Phil can see the doubt. "The other day, when you told me about your last mission, I couldn't stop myself from thinking that there was no way you should have succeeded."

"Yeah," he muttered looking away. "None of us really thought we had much of a chance either."

"But you did. Your force was grossly outnumbered, you had no real plan, and the most vital factor in this nonexistent plan was allowing yourself to be captured. Yet you still managed a successful mission, because that's what you do. There is no way to quantify that, let alone explain how it actually happens. It's an exceedingly rare ability, one that SHIELD values highly."

Steve stares at the other man for a long time, then shrugs his shoulders and rubs the back of his neck. It's stupid really he admits to the SHIELD agent, but that last mission hardly feels like it was a victory at all. Sure Schmidt is dead and his country was saved, and he really is happy about that, but in the end the one thing he had counted on was that the people he cared about would come out of it alive. Intellectually he knows they did, but from Steve's perspective four days ago they were alive, and now they're not.

"You're dealing in speculation Captain Rogers," Coulson states with a tiny frown when Steve is done talking. "I think it's time you looked at evidence."

This time when they reach the first floor, the elevator doesn't stop. There are no lighted buttons on the panel by which Steve can track their descent. Given the time he estimates five levels beneath the street when the bell rings and the doors slide open, releasing them into a long sterile corridor lined with black steel doors. Coulson leads him to the last door on the right, and bends slightly at the waist as a ruby red light plays across his eyes. Then the door clicks open and Steve finds himself inside a Spartan but impeccably neat space. Large metal filing cabinets line one wall, with a desk near the back and a credenza behind it. Steve's eye is caught by the rooms only decorative touch; three framed black and white pictures that hang on the opposite wall from the file cabinets.

"Ansel Adams,' he mutters, and Coulson looks over his shoulder and nods.

"He's still popular?"

"More like revered. He's considered one of the greatest photographers of the 20th Century."

Coulson selects a folder from one of the neat stacks on top of the credenza. After he offers the chair in front of his desk to Steve, he sits in the one behind his desk.

"This is the confidential information file of one of the founding members of SHIELD." He hands it to Steve, who looks at him with raised eyebrows.

"Go ahead and open it."

When he does, his hands jerk back slightly in surprise, because Peggy is staring back at him. It's a picture clipped to a thick sheaf of paper, and after taking a deep breath his lips curve into a smile, because it's unadulterated Peggy, and she giving it to whoever is behind the camera with full force. The set line of her mouth, slightly elevated chin, and those wonderful eyes focusing straight ahead. The photo screamed determination to Steve, and the message she conveyed was loud and clear; either line up beside me or get the hell out of my way. He lightly traced the shape of her face with a finger, and asked Coulson a question that he's been afraid to even think about for the last few days.

"Peggy…is she still alive?"

Coulson shakes his head with a sigh. "No she isn't. She died in 2003."

There is probably something Phil should say, but offering words of comfort is certainly not something he's any good at. While he's been told his verbal abilities are first rate, and that he's quite good at praising others, he doesn't think that's what Captain Rogers needs right now. There also the fact that 'good shot' or "that was a clean kill' would be highly inappropriate given the circumstances. Best to just go with the facts.

"That picture was taken the day after she signed the original SHIELD charter," he continues, hands clasped tightly in front of him, "almost exactly four years after you went missing. It took her a while to find her bearings, but as I'm sure you know Peggy Carter wasn't a person to waste her life looking back."

"No…no she wasn't." Steve said quietly.

"Eventually we all have to move on, if we want to live. Peggy Carter did that. She spent twenty years as the Assistant Director for SHIELD, and she also found time to get married and raise a couple of kids. She was a very important factor in making the world a safer place, and for making this organization what it is today."

Steve looks up at him sharply at the last part. "Why are you telling me this?"

"All those things became possible for her because of what you did Captain Rogers. And it's the same for all the other people you left behind. Timothy Dugan was the first Director of SHIELD. Gabe Jones a civil rights leader and educator. All of the Howling Commandos survived the war and went one to live reasonably happy and productive lives. All because of you."

Rogers doesn't say anything at first, his attention still firmly on the photograph. When he finally looks at Coulson again, his eyes seem brighter to Phil, and some of the sadness that had hovered over him like a cloud was gone.

"Thanks for that," he says quietly, then after a deep breath he speaks again. "I'd like to keep this picture, if you don't mind."

"Of course," Phil agrees, and Steve just nods and carefully separates the photo from the sheaf of paper, cradling it loosely in one hand.

Once again Phil is stuck about what to say, and before he can mutter some awkward sounding cliché of condolence his phone starts to ring, playing out the opening notes to one of his favorite tunes. He slips it out of his pocket and glances at the screen, sees that it's Ziva calling. Then he looks up and sees Captain Rogers staring at him. Actually, the man's attention is fixed on his phone. Coulson feels his face flush just a little bit.

"Hey," Rogers says softly, "that's…

"…The Star Spangled Man With a Plan," he finishes for him, flashing an embarrassed grin. "I have to take this call," he continues, gesturing an apology for the interruption as he swipes his finger over the smooth surface.

"Hello Ziva," he says, sitting in his own chair. "What can I do for you?"

"There are some matters I would like to discuss with you Phil," she answered briskly. He looks at Captain Rogers, who seemed to still be focused on his phone, and fights the urge to sigh.

"Sure," he responds, not at all surprised. "What do you need to know?"

"I have told Gibbs of your offer. He would like to speak with you in person."

"We could Skype," he offers, knowing that it's futile. Gibbs is known to be relentlessly technophobic.

"I do not think that you would enjoy that experience," she answers with a chuckle.

"Probably not," he observed. "You've kind of caught me at a bad time Ziva," he went on after pausing to collect his thoughts. "The Director has just handed me a very important project."

"I realize how busy you are Phil," she said in a firm voice. "But it is very important to me that you speak with Gibbs."

He should have seen this coming. Phil knows how much Ziva trusts her boss, but he's a little surprised that she told him about this so soon after their conversation. He had actually planned on inviting her to New York yesterday, but had put it off because of this thing with Rogers. He still thinks it's a good idea, but it's going to be a little more complicated now. While he has an excellent reason not to make a trip to DC (there no way Fury would let him), he needs some kind of excuse for Ziva to visit SHIELD.

He remembers a notice in the last intelligence summary, something that involved an indeterminate threat to the Navy.

"Phil? Are you still there?"

"Yes." He set the phone on his desk, activating the speaker function so he could use both hands to shuffle through his files.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying not to think that the only reason you want me there is the apparent need to hold Agent Gibbs' hand."

A noise that sounded suspiciously close to a snort issued from the phone, making him smile. He glanced at Roger and saw he was doing the same thing. Interesting. "That is a fascinating metal image Philip. One I would enjoy seeing."

"If it will get you to sign on with us, I'd be happy to kiss him."

This time he gets full throated laughter. "Enough Phil," she chortles, after a few moments. "That will certainly not be necessary, although I appreciate the sacrifice you are willing to make."

"I do what I can Ziva," he answers, extracting the document he's been search for from the middle of his 'I don't have the time for this' stack.

The contact was reliable, yet vague. Which made it the worst kind of intelligence in his opinion. Something you couldn't afford to ignore, but almost always turned out to being a waste of time. Although the one bit of detail included was interesting. The threat was alleged to be a bomber.

"Are you certain there is no possible way for you to come here? Even beyond talking to Gibbs, there are questions that I would like to ask you concerning SHIELD."

"You know Ziva," he responds with a grin, because it's the perfect opening, "I though you were a better investigator then that. It's never a good idea to rely on second hand information."

"Are you saying that I cannot trust what you tell me?" She asks, in a tone that suggests that while she is teasing him, there is the hint of accusation as well.

"I am a spy Ziva," he answers, "and more to the point, I'm hardly an unbiased observer when it comes to SHIELD. You'd be much better off forming your own opinions. I have always found when you have concerns about something, the best way to find answers is through personal observation."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Come pay us a visit." he challenges her. "It's really the next step you need to take Ziva. If you like what you see, I'll be glad to come to DC and talk with Gibbs."

At first the suggestion seemed to anger her. She accused him of trying to manipulate her, and when he laughed (manipulation was part of his job description), she almost hung up. His reference to new intelligence for NCIS saves the day. Gradually she comes around, and when he deployed the offer of tickets to the Broadway show of her choice she agreed, after making a great show of her reluctance.

It wasn't until they were discussing the final details (he offered a Shield jet for transport) that it occurred to him that this could be what Ziva wanted all along. She knew enough about his schedule to realize that asking him to come down to DC on less then forty-eight hours notice probably wasn't going to happen. The fact that she was actually free to travel seemed too convenient. He resolves to ask her about this if (when) she ends up taking the job. After she hangs up, he looks at the man sitting on the other side of his desk, and is relieved to see that Captain Rogers is less agitated.

"Sorry," he apologizes with a shrug. "I would have let the call go to voicemail, but I've been expecting Ziva to contact me for the last few days."

"So…that's a phone?" Steve asked, in a voice that was both relieved and touched with wonder. Phil nods, and holds the sleek, shiny, device out for Captain Rogers to take.

"Go ahead," he encouraged, and when he still hesitated, Phil placed on the desk in front of him.

"Wires?"

"It's a different kind of phone then that. Based on cellular technology. Like a walkie-talkie."

Steve nodded, picking it up gingerly, and let it rest in the palm of his hand. "I couldn't figure out what these were. Actually a phone makes a lot of sense."

Coulson kind of felt guilty about that. He really should have taken some time to explain some things to Rogers in the course of their brief trip to the coffee shop. He makes a mental note to start tomorrow.

"I'm sure it's all a little overwhelming. All the changes I mean."

Steve shrugs, he attention still fixed on the object in his hand. After looking it over one last time, he puts it back on the desk. "Sure seems handy," he says, but his voice sounds uncertain.

"It is. And you can do a lot more with it then place phone calls."

"Really?" Is the response, but there is no real interest in his tone. "The dame you were talking with…Ziva. Where is she from?"

Phil can't help the smile that results. He wishes Ziva was here, because he'd really like to see her reaction to that. The smile doesn't last long, because he this isn't a conversation he wants to have right now.

"Why do you ask?"

"Her …she had an accent. I can't quite place it. Sounded European though…she had a nice voice."

"Probably because of her affinity for languages," he prevaricates. Phil really does not want to explain why Israel exists tonight. "I think she speaks at least eight fluently."

"Eight languages," Steve responded, clearly impressed. "Is that why SHIELD wants to hire her?"

"That's one reason," Phil answers, a little surprised at the interest. "Ziva is also an experienced criminal investigator and undercover operative."

"I guess women have a lot more freedom to do what they want now."

"Is that a problem for you Captain Rogers?"

"No it isn't," the other man replied firmly. "I know how hard Peggy had to work just to prove she could do her job as well as a man. Hell she was better then most of them, and they resented her for it." He paused to take a deep breath. "Still, seeing women put themselves in danger? I guess that's something I'm going to have to get used to."

"You know as well as I do it's something you never get used to, regardless of the individual's sex."

He could clearly see the look of surprise that flashed across Rogers' face. For a moment he looks even younger then his actual age; a shy, naïve, man who can't quite let go of his pain. Then almost from one breath to the next, Steve's expression hardens, and it's almost as if someone completely different was sitting in the chair, because if this man gave him an order, Phil doesn't know if he could resist the impulse to snap to it.

"You said you had a plan for me sir." The voice is firm, the tone determined.

"That's correct Captain."

"I'd like to know when we can get started on that."

"Don't you want to know what it is?"

"Of course I do," Rogers answered with a smile, "and you can be sure that if your boss doesn't explain it to me, I won't be with SHIELD for very long."

"Are you sure about this Captain?"

"No. Haven't really been sure about a damned thing since I woke up."

"Seems like you're taking a lot on trust."

"Maybe," Steve says softly, then gives Phil a searching look. "I think I trust you Agent Coulson, but you said it yourself, when it comes to the outfit you work for, you're not exactly objective."

"Then why…"

"Consider it a test Agent Coulson," Steve interrupted, folding his arms across his chest. "I'm sure you could give me a good argument that working with SHIELD is the way I should go. The problem is I don't have any way to judge what you or anyone else tells me. So I'm just going to take the jump."

"Are you certain that's wise?" Coulson asked, is tone tentative.

"You know it's probably not. The thing is, being cautious as never been all that appealing to me Agent Coulson."

Sometimes Steve thinks that when God made him he left something out, something that made other people hold back when there was a good reason to do so. He thinks about Erskine's offer, and wonders how many others would have run screaming from that lab. Because he didn't he became more then he ever could have imagined, even if a lot of the time he was still the skinny, sick guy in his head. What he could have never know was that taking that leap was going end up with him landing here.

**A/N: I want to thank everyone who has reviewed this story, as well as all the people who are reading it. Sorry for the false advertising, but I just couldn't get to Ziva meeting Cap till the next update. Please continue you to let me know what you think.**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Hardheaded

**A/N: Sorry for the long delay between updates. Holiday season was much busier then expected, plus this was a bear to write. In the future, I will make it a priority to respond to each review, but for now I will do it here.**

**Thank you to Irish Brigid and alienyouthct for pointing out my verb tense issues. I will be editing the previous chapters for consistency. **

**Thanks to Susan M. M. for the comments. Steve does admire strong, take no prisoners women. As for what that means in relation to Ziva, we'll just have to wait and see. **

**Thanks to Random: I'm glad you like the story so much. Should have included a warning on language. Hope you stay on board.**

**Just Me, you made a lot of interesting suggestions. Steve at NCIS would be a great story, and I can tell you that going forward that team Gibbs will have an important role in the story, and not just Ziva.**

**Once again a big thank you to everyone who is reading this, especially those who took the time to comment.**

The voice was calm, but Phil and Natasha knew perfectly well this wasn't just a simple request for information. Hill had already given them a heads up that Fury wasn't pleased about their sortie with Rogers. Not really a shock to either of them, but it was still a good thing to know exactly how furious Fury might be when they trudged into to his office. They were a bit relieved to see steaming mugs of coffee waiting on the conference table, and while the director looked like he had nails with a side of barbed wire for breakfast, it wasn't all that different from his usual demeanor.

"So why don't one of you explain to me what possible reason there could be for taking Rogers out of this building for a cup of coffee?"

"Excuse me boss," Coulson answered after glancing at Natasha, "but didn't we talk about this already?"

"As I recall, you asked me if he could start taking his meals in the cafeteria. You didn't say anything about Rogers leaving the building."

"Captain Rogers expressed some doubt that adjusting to his new circumstances would be difficult. We thought he needed to see things for himself."

"Why didn't you just show him a movie or something?"

"You mean like one of the Hangover movies? Or maybe Bridesmaids?" Natasha inquired with a smirk. "The last thing Rogers asked me after the debriefing was whether he was a prisoner. We just wanted to show him that wasn't true."

"I still don't like it," Fury muttered, reaching for his coffee. "What if he was recognized? The last thing we need is Captain America's face plastered across the front page of some tabloid."

"With all due respect sir, I think that's incredibly unlikely." Coulson answered.

"Maybe, but you really haven't given me a reason why I should even take the chance."

"Because you want Rogers to trust you Nick," Romanov said. "And that's not going to happen if he's thinks you don't trust him."

"I agree sir," Coulson stated, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. "There is also Captain Rogers' need to adjust to his new circumstances that must be taken into account."

"How did your little outing go?"

"I think it convinced the Captain that he needs time to get used to the way things are now." Coulson answered. "He certainly was surprised by the cost of a cup of coffee."

"And by how short the skirts are now," Natasha added with a wink.

"Yeah. I guess that would be a surprise for a guy from the 40's," Fury remarked with a hint of amusement.

"I'm sure there are any number of things Captain Rogers will find disconcerting," Coulson observed.

"Which doesn't mean that we should shield him from things we don't think he will like," Romanov added. "None of those things are going to change, so he's just going to have to get used to them."

Fury just looked at them both for a long time. Then he shrugged his shoulders and drained most of his coffee cup. "Maybe you're right, but until Rogers agrees to commit to us, I'm not prepared to let him wander out into the streets when either he or you see fit."

"That's the other thing we were going to tell you boss. He already has."

Coulson offered up him a brief summary of the conversation. Natasha already knew, since he had texted her as soon as he got back home. She actually called him so he could give her the details, and told him she was impressed right before she hung up. Which had made him feel just a little bit giddy. Even after nearly twenty years with SHIELD, her experience trumped his and they both knew it. They also knew that even if she was completely trustworthy, Natasha wouldn't be assigned a supervisory position with SHIELD. For one thing it would be a waste of talent. And there was also the fact that she would never be considered completely trustworthy.

"Do you have a phone Coulson?"

"Sir I…"

"You know how he hates to jump ahead," Natasha said, winking at Phil.

"Shut up," Fury muttered, but the only reaction he received was Romanov's unrepentant grin. At least Coulson knew better then to let any trace of mockery show on his face.

"Why the sudden change of heart?" Fury demanded.

"I think Captain Rogers is facing reality," Coulson answered with a shrug. "For the moment, we are literally the only people he knows, so he doesn't have much of a choice. If he's going to learn about the 21st Century, he needs someone to show him the ropes."

Fury nodded. It made sense based on what Coulson had just told him. Except that he had already underestimated Rogers once. "So why do I think there's more to it?"

"Of course there is more to it," Natasha agreed, glancing at Coulson. "While he's learning about the present, he's also going to be learning about us."

"So Rogers thinks I'm just going to…"

"You can shut him out if you want," Romanov interrupted in a cool voice. "But you'll still be telling him something."

"Fine," he responded, after letting out an explosive breath. "We'll do it your way. While I agree that Captain Rogers needs to be exposed to certain things if he's ever going to be of any use, that does not include public scrutiny of any kind. Do I make myself clear?"

"Of course boss," Coulson answered promptly. All he got out of Natasha was an infinitesimal nod.

"I'm putting you in charge of this Coulson. Have a plan of action for getting him up to speed on my desk by Monday."

"I sent that to your server an hour ago boss," Coulson shot back with a smile. Then he was off the chair and out of the room with a wave of his hand. Natasha watched him leave, then turned her attention back to Fury.

"Is there something you want to tell me Romanov?"

"I know Coulson sent you his report," she answered.

"He didn't need to. I knew what Phil thought of Rogers before I read it. I'm guessing you don't quite agree with him."

"Rogers seems like a nice enough guy."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Don't be fooled by the packaging Nick. Sure, it's very nice gift wrap, but we really don't know what's inside. At least not yet."

"Natasha," he said, his tone incredulous, "we've got enough material on Rogers to wall paper this room and three more besides. What makes you think there's anything we _**don't **_know about him?"

"Because we both know who put that archive together," she responded with a sneer, "The same person who sanitized the official record of any and all references concerning Hydra and the Tesseract."

For a man who believed paranoia was an essential character trait, Fury's attitude seemed deeply suspicious to her. He's known about Margret Carter's post war game of deception a lot longer then she has, but apparently can't or won't put the pieces together. This was the woman responsible for making every piece of information concerning Schmidt or the Tesseract disappear from the historical record. Surviving Hydra cells were ruthlessly hunted down, and Schmidt's organization was explained away as a splinter group of the SS, bent on conquering the world for Hitler through the perverted mixing of science and the supernatural. It was one of the neatest pieces of work Natasha had ever seen. In comparison, mucking with the Captain America archive would be a piece of cake. After all, the woman had already substituted her own carefully crafted version of the Captain America story. When she pointed that out, the momentary flash of doubt on his face felt almost comforting.

"She had to do that. If Rogers' real story had ever come out, it could have lead directly to the Tesseract."

No she thought immediately, it had to be more then that. The best lie was always the one that came the closest to the truth. In this case, it should have been allowing people to think the obvious, that Rogers was just a guy in a funny suit shilling for war bonds and making propaganda films. Which was not what Carter had done when she altered the history of Captain America. Coulson had told her the story the other night over half a bottle of vodka with a strange mixture of admiration and regret.

How Carter had created an entire career for Rogers. According to her narrative, Steve Rogers performed as Captain America for numerous war bond tours throughout the USA. Starting in the spring of 1943 he had moved to Europe, touring with the USO while also moonlighting for the Office of Strategic Services. Working behind enemy lines, he lead the Howling Commandos in numerous missions of sabotage while rescuing hundreds of Allied POWs. The Medal of Honor he was awarded had been for his last mission in the fall of 1944, a solo recon job for operation Market Garden from which he had never returned. Pronounced missing in action and eventually declared dead, Steve Rogers had gone down in the history books as a minor, but heroic side show in the gigantic spectacle of the Second World War.

Like any good writer who wanted to create a believable story, Carter made sure to mix plenty of fact with her fiction. There had been operations run by Rogers against regular Nazi targets during lulls in the long war with Hydra. She added to those, corroborating her fictitious history of POW rescues and missions of sabotage behind enemy lines by either bribing or blackmailing someone who worked for the OSS to place mission reports in their files. It was the wrong approach for something like this. The only reason the tissue of lies had survived at all was the utter chaos of the final months of the war. When she said this to Fury, he did something that was pretty strange for him. He laughed.

"Yeah, writing Rogers out of the story would have been the smart play. Sure as hell would have made my job a lot easier. But that wasn't something Margret Carter wanted to do."

"Why not?" She asked, careful not to let the confusion show in her voice. Because even with an ally (was that even true of Fury), she was always reluctant to give too much away.

"Because she loved him Agent Romanov."

"Of course," she muttered, silently cursing herself that she had not seen the obvious. Margret Carter had been compromised.

Because of her emotional attachment, the woman had accepted unnecessary risks in order to preserve the memory Captain America, even though this record was something she had mostly created herself. Why would she stop at that? Natasha read the after action report on every mission Rogers ran. She didn't think there were enough of them, and they were also far too clean. She had to wonder what else Margret Carter had lied about. According to the archive, Rogers was a paragon, always polite, never down about anything, ready to make whatever sacrifice was needed to see the mission through. The testimony in regards to his leadership skills, and fighting ability was universally positive, and peppered with enough examples to leave her impressed, and suspicious at the same time. Every time Natasha has encountered something or someone that was too good to be true, she was proved correct.

* * *

"Go home everyone," Gibbs barked, gesturing toward the elevator. "Get out of here."

It was nearly nine P.M. on Friday, and she was already four hours late for her trip to New York. A trip that she is no longer sure she wanted to make. Ziva was tired, hungry, and still angry over the case they had just brought to a successful conclusion. She had been awake for nearly forty hours, since Gibbs had called the team in at 0400 Thursday morning to investigate a child abduction. Ziva had been prepared to work around the clock from the moment that she knew what they were dealing with, because while her team took every case seriously, Gibbs had a very special loathing of any crime that threatened children.

Over the course of the next two days, as they scrambled to find the four year old girl, Gibbs became increasingly angry, his face set in a perpetual scowl, his demands for progress louder and more unreasonable. Just when she feared that the pressure would cause one of the others to snap (her biggest concern was McGee), the stakeouts, interviews, and computer hacking finally produced results. The girl's father, a Marine Sergeant had originally been dismissed as a suspect because he was serving a four week sentence in the Quantico Brig for fighting. As things turned out, it was his parents who were responsible, luring the little girl away from the man's estranged wife at the park. Even then it took almost six hours to find where they had hidden her, but at least Gibbs was no longer on the verge of becoming incoherent with rage.

She knew what drove him to this behavior, understood that the murder of his first wife and only child made cases like these an obsession. She understood the rage in part because she felt it too, even if the intensity wasn't the same. How could she not, when it was her duty to do all that she could to protect the innocent. In this case, they had been lucky. While the grandparents actions had been illegal, there was no intent to harm. The next time they might not be so fortunate. And there would always be a next time.

Stifling a sigh she pocketed her phone and retrieved her luggage, a single large carry on and the garment bag she had hastily packed after Gibbs had called her in. While she desperately wanted a shower, there just wasn't time right now. She looked over at Gibbs and he was hunched over his key board, glasses close to sliding off his nose, pecking away furiously. With a shake of her head she turned to go.

"Ziver."

She turned at the sound of his voice and while she felt like she'd just ran a marathon with a fifty pound pack strapped to her back, he looked completely fresh and willing to work until dawn. Which was probably what he was going to do, she realized.

"I could stay and help you finish," she offered, but he just smiled and shook his head.

"Go have some fun Ziver," he ordered, and she felt better, because he was mostly back to being Gibbs, except for the too tense set of his shoulders. Then he winked at her and grabbed his coffee. "Say hi to Coulson for me," he said with a nod.

She flashed him a smile in acknowledgement, and turned toward the elevator, where Tony was waiting, a grin plastered across his otherwise weary face. She stopped short, her frazzled brain trying to make sense of what she saw. As soon as Gibbs had told them to leave, both McGee and Tony had jumped out of their chairs, practically running to the elevator. Ziva had seen them go, had heard the ding of the bell, along with the doors closing, and had made the mistake of assuming her partner was no longer there.

"Coulson?" He muttered, saying the name with a smirk.

She ignored him, reaching to press the down button. Thankfully, the door opened immediately and she strode into the elevator. She couldn't say she was surprised when Tony followed.

"Tony," she growled, a warning that told him he had about five seconds to make his case before she laid him out.

"You don't have to tell me anything about this," he responded with a shrug.

"You do not even know what this is Tony."

"It's not even two weeks since you found out about Ray."

"This has nothing to do with him," she muttered. "I merely wish to spend the weekend in New York."

"With Coulson."

"This is none of your business Tony," Ziva shot back, emphasizing every word.

"So who is this guy?"

When she asked him how he even knew that Coulson was a man, Tony looked at her like she had grown a second head. Once they arrived at the ground floor, he followed her out of the elevator and through the door which lead into the parking lot, gesticulating one arm wildly as he tried to explain that he really wasn't trying to do the thing he obviously was; get her to tell him about Coulson. There was a big black SUV parked in one of the nearest spaces with a man in a dark blue suit leaning against the passenger door. Suppressing a yawn, Ziva made a bee line toward the car. The guy in the suit nodded, took her bags, and opened the passenger door. After she slid into the seat she turned to look at Tony, who had stopped about ten feet away, his mouth open but blessedly silent. With a wink she closed the door.

Ziva didn't really remember most of the trip. While not exactly asleep, she wasn't quite alert either, especially after she had boarded the jet. The seats were very comfortable, and the sandwich was both excellent (turkey and avocado with hummus; Coulson must have told them), and had the effect of intensifying her languor. There was a brief period of semi-consciousness when the plane landed, followed by a restless half slumber that she was jolted out when the door next to her opened and she found herself face to face with Phil Coulson.

"Easy Ziva," he said softly, his hands up, the palms facing her.

"Hello Phil," she muttered, quelling the impulse that would send her hand searching for her nearest weapon, a Ruger LCR revolver strapped to the inside of her left ankle. With a soft grunt, she pushed herself out of the car. She saw his eyes rapidly flick over her, followed by a frown.

"What happened?"

"An abduction happened," she answered, after taking a deep breath. "Four year old daughter of a Marine dependent."

"Since you're here, I assume you found her."

"Eventually. She was taken by relatives."

"For a kidnapping, that counts as a happy ending."

"As these things go, yes. Of course the grandparents involved may not agree with your evaluation, since they will be facing long prison terms if convicted."

"Come on Ziva. I'll show you to your room so you can get some sleep."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Not really."

"For a spy, you are not a very good liar Phil."

"I didn't put any effort into it," he answered with a shrug. "Besides, from what I know about your boss, I'm willing to bet you haven't had much time to do anything but work your case."

The elevator took them up a dozen floors, and they came out of it into a carpeted lobby. Coulson steered her past a cubicle farm. She could see some people hunched over computer screens murmuring into microphones, while others were clearly visible, their heads above the maze of walls as they paced tightly back and forth in their tiny office prisons. Ziva turned away, making a mental note to inquire about her office space if she decided to take the job. They maneuvered though an intersection and past two conference rooms into a carpeted and wood paneled hallway with four doors, two on each side. Phil lead her to the first one on the right, and opened the door with a flourish that made her chuckle.

"Thank you Phil," she said, after walking inside. "This is nice. Much better then I expected."

The carpet was plush in a neutral tone, the furniture solid and comfortable. She had no interest in the flat screen television, but the huge tub and separate shower were another matter. The bedroom consisted of a king size bed that took up most of the space, which she desperately wanted to put to good use.

"This is our VIP housing," Phil stated. He smiled at the look of confusion he got. "Mostly politicians of the federal and foreign variety. Don't worry, the sheets are always changed between guests."

"Thank God," she muttered, and that was more about the bed then anything else. Although she certainly did appreciate clean sheets.

"Get some sleep Ziva, I'll get you for breakfast at 0800."

Five hours later Ziva bolted upright, jolted awake by the sound of something slamming against the wall right behind her head. The knife in her hand had been under her pillow just a moment ago, the long, thin blade flicking out of the handle the moment she had drawn it out. There was another loud thump behind her, and then a barely audible noise that sounded like a man groaning. Ziva remained motionless, one foot planted firmly on the floor next to her bed, ready to move at the slightest sign that she was no longer alone in her room. There was no movement, no sounds other then what she expected in a large building such as this, so she turned on the lamp by the side of her bed. Nothing in the room appeared to have changed except for the wall behind her. There was a fist sized chuck of plaster missing, and numerous jagged cracks fanning out from the divot. Ziva ran a hand across the top of her head, dislodging tiny bits of the wall from her hair. She closed the knife and set it on the table by her bed. The clock next to the lamp read 0420. Muttering curses in Hebrew, she pulled a pair of track pants from her bag and slipped them on.

At the door she listened for a moment, before cracking it open. She heard a voice talking so quietly she couldn't make out what was being said, so she slowly pushed the door open and took one small step. There was a man standing with his back to her, leaning close to the next door to her right, speaking to someone on the other side in a low voice. Even though his head was turned away, Ziva doesn't need to see his face to recognize Barton. There was no mistaking those arms. She brushed one foot along the carpet and his head jerked around. After a moment of confusion, a wide smile broke across is face.

"Ziva," he whispered, and shook his head, gesturing toward the door in front of him.

She nodded, tilting her head toward her own door. Barton nodded in turn and she went back to her room, leaving the door open. Within a minute she heard the sound of a lock clicking open and then closed again. By the time Barton knocked on her door fifteen minutes later, she had found a package of tea and was about to pour hot water through the brass strainer.

"Damn, it's good to see you David," he said with a smile.

When she held her hand out, he laughed and then those amazing arms were wrapped around her. She hasn't seen him in three years (a reception at the Israeli embassy; there was dancing, he was very good), but except for somewhat longer hair, he looked pretty much the same.

"Coulson tells me your going to play for our team," He said, after letting her go and hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter.

"I am considering the job offer Clint."

"Phil seems pretty sure of himself."

"That is certainly true. However, I am not."

"You'll come around," he commented, sounding far more confident then he should in her opinion.

It wasn't something she really wanted to discuss with him, at least not yet. However, there was a question Ziva did have, one that she wanted an answer to. Grabbing his hand, she yanked him off the counter, pulling him along into the bedroom.

"Would you mind explaining that?" She demanded, pointing to the damaged wall.

"Christ," he muttered, shaking his head.

"What happened Clint?"

"Bad dream?" He muttered, looking away from her.

"Clint, that is hardly a result of a bad dream," she shot back, gesturing toward the wall.

"Ok…nightmare then." There was a long silence, which consisted mostly of Ziva staring at him, hands on her hips. "I think Captain Rogers might have slammed his head against the wall?"

"Please tell me you strongly encouraged this person to see a doctor."

"I did," came the uncomfortable reply, "but they refused."

"They? Do you not mean him?"

"Hey that's…that's sexist!" He shot back with a smile.

"Please. We both know that only a man would be stupid enough to act like this."

"I think you're forgetting about Tasha," Barton countered indignantly.

"Do not try to change the subject. Surely there must rules that require a person to seek medical attention when they suffer a head injury."

"First of all, I don't think Rogers was hurt. And even if he was, he's not SHIELD."

"If this man is not affiliated with SHIELD, then why is he here?"

"Same reason you are Ziva. Rogers is another one of Coulson's projects."

"So I am a project?" She asked, brow furrowed.

"Ziva, this whole Investigations Division is Phil's project. Sure, Director Fury thinks it's a good idea, but it's really Phil's baby."

"And what about this Captain Rogers? Is he also intended for this so called project?"

"No." Barton said taking a deep breath. "I'm not really supposed to talk about him at all. Sorry."

"I understand Clint." She went over to her carry on, pulling out a slim flashlight and a small black bag that contained her medical kit. "However, I will not allow this man's foolishness to put him in possible danger. We are going to his room right now to check on him."

"That might be a little tough to do Ziva," he said, just as she was about step out of her room, "since he isn't there."

"Where did he go?" She demanded, in a voice that sounded a lot like Tasha's when she was pissed off.

"I really did try and get him to see a doc," Clint answered with a shrug. "What can I say, the guy is stubborn."

"I believe you." She responded, tone edging toward normal. "Now are you going to tell where you fellow idiot is, or should I call Phil and ask him?"

"The gym…," Ziva muttered for the third time as they get off the elevator, and Clint couldn't help but grimace. When he'd told her where Rogers was, she had looked at him like he was a ten year old who'd been caught writing dirty words on the chalk board.

"I cannot decide which of you is the bigger fool," she finally said, turning to look at him.

"He told me he was alright," Clint insisted, not meeting her eyes. "He wasn't slurring, and the light didn't bother him."

"He broke a wall with his head."

"Rogers has a damned hard head."

"I am sure you would know Clint."

They reached a set of doors at the end of the hall way. "He's in there," Barton told her, gesturing to the door. "Go easy on him Ziva," he said, blowing out a breath. Then he looked at her closely and frowned. "You better get some more sleep. We've got a big night planned for you tonight. Coulson even talked Natasha into joining us."

"Is that so?"

"Dinner and a show. Then we go dancing. So you need to make sure you're rested David, cause you and me are gonna to tear up the floor tonight."

"I look forward to it," she said, with a smile. Ziva enjoyed dancing, and Barton was one of the best dance partners she'd ever had. He flashed her his own grin, then turned to walk away. "Are you not coming in?"

"Nope. I'm gonna be in enough trouble with Coulson as it is." Barton was half way down the corridor, when he turned to look at her. "I forgot to tell you. Rogers asked me to make sure you knew he was sorry for waking you up." Then with a wave of his hand he turned left down the hallway and out of her sight.

More then a little irritated, she turned back to the door. This was after all Barton's fault, she muttered to herself. The least he could do was help her fix it. With a sigh she picked up her bag and open the door. About twenty feet away there was a very good looking man skipping rope. This was of course a provisional judgment, mainly because he was turned away from the door so that she could only see his profile. He was a big man, at least six foot two, with long arms and legs, and a shock of closely cropped blonde hair. Ziva could certainly see the promise of an impressive physical specimen, but the details were not clear, mainly because he was moving so rapidly that she found it difficult to focus.

His hands were a blur, the rope hissing through the air and slapping on the matt so fast that it was difficult to distinguish the separate sounds, while he hopped back and forth from foot to foot. After maybe half a minute, he started crossing and uncrossing his arms, switching so rapidly that she had difficulty following his movements. Finally, he began to swing the rope even faster then before, getting three, then four, and finally five revolutions on each hop. He would do ten on one foot then switch to the other, all the time breathing normally, like this was no strain for him at all. After staring at the man for maybe two minutes, Ziva decided that she had acted like Tony long enough, and let the door she had been holding click shut. The man abruptly stopped and turned so that they faced each other, and Ziva was hit full force with the realization of just how wrong she had been.

Rogers wasn't good looking. He was hands down the most beautiful man she had ever seen. No one else even came close, and she didn't even like blondes. The two brilliant blue eyes looking down at her were set in a face that could have been the model for a Renaissance sculpture. As for the body attached to it; while she couldn't make out a lot of the particulars, Ziva could see that it was just as impressive. Broad shoulders tapering to a slim waist that many women would envy, with a sweat dampened white t-shirt that revealed the outline of what appeared to be a perfect physique.

"Can I help you ma'am?" The man asked with a pleasant voice, which did absolutely nothing to dispel the surge of anger she felt when he called her that.

"Ma'am," she growled indignantly, her tone of voice stopping him in his tracks. "Do I look like someone who would appreciate being addressed in such a manner?"

"What…I didn't mean anything…," his voice trailed off, clearly discombobulated by her response.

There was something about his voice, or maybe those blue eyes, that convinced her that he was simply trying to be polite rather then patronizing. Still, there was the principle of the thing. "Very well, I will accept that this was an unfortunate error on your part, so long as it never happens again."

"Thanks ma…I mean Miss," he stuttered, not quite sure what he was allowed to call her. She decided to have mercy on him. How could she stay mad at someone for being too polite?

"My name is Ziva. Ziva David," she said, and the smile he flashed in return made her feel almost giddy.

"Yeah I know," he responded, reaching out one huge hand to engulf hers. For a second all she could do was stare at the paw that was attached to a forearm nearly the circumference of her leg. Then her brain caught up to her libido.

"How is it you know who I am?" She demanded in a soft, dangerous voice. Either he must have recognized the tone, or her face showed him more then she intended, because Rogers took a single step back, raising his hand in a placating gesture.

"Sorry, I was with Agent Coulson when you were talking about coming to New York. He did something with his…phone thing…so we could both hear you."

"You recognized my voice?"

"It's a very nice voice," he said with a sincerity that made her feel slightly light headed.

Still, there was something wrong here. Barton had referred to this man as Captain Rogers, but in her experience he was far too young for such a rank. Of course that really wasn't her concern, and Ziva was reasonably certain that Coulson could make the same observation she could. Right now this man didn't need to be interrogated about his age, he needed to see a doctor. Barton had said he was stubborn, but Ziva was willing to bet that Rogers could not possibly be as stubborn as she was.

"You need to go to the infirmary," she said, trying to couch her voice so that it wasn't demanding. By the look he gave her, she knew that it had not worked.

"No I don't," came the answer, not nearly as polite.

"Stop acting like a bat's ass," she retorted. "You smashed your head against a wall hard enough to break it. I should know, since my room shares the same wall."

For several seconds he stared at her in confusion. "Barton told you that I was sorry…that I woke you up, didn't he?" Rogers finally muttered in return, and suddenly she was at the point of very much wanting to jam one of those huge hands behind his back and frog march him down to the infirmary, except that she had no idea where it was.

"Come here," she ordered instead, and after a moments hesitation he took two steps and stood before her. She grabbed the small flashlight out of her bag and told him to look down at her.

"Did you black out after your head hit the wall?" She asked, shining the light into his eyes, He said no, and his pupils reacted normally to the light. His vision was not blurred, and while his head had hurt for several minutes after it had smashed into the wall, it felt fine now he insisted, and when she moved a finger across his line of sight, both eyes tracked normally.

"Satisfied?" He asked, in a tone that made the word sound more like an accusation, and she was about to say yes, when it occurred to her that she was far too ready to accept what was an obvious case of macho nonsense. When she told him exactly that, all she got was a look of befuddlement.

"I don't know what you mean," he answered, and did he really expect her to believe that?

"You know exactly what I mean," she answered in an clipped voice. "You are unwilling to acknowledge that you could be injured because you somehow believe that to do so would be a sign of weakness."

"Macho huh," he said finally, after a long silence. "That's what they call it now? Just sounds stupid to me."

"Then why do you not go to see a doctor?"

"Because I don't like them," came the prompt reply. "When I was a kid, I was sick all the time. My ma wore herself out taking me to see docs. None of them knew what was wrong with me, but not a one ever would admit that."

"Well, you certainly seem to have gotten better."

"I guess," he said, and then he looked at her with an expression she couldn't place and that smile made another appearance. "Tell you what Miss David, if it'll make you feel any better, I'll let the docs take a look at me."

"Thank you," she huffed, not sure why this was about what she was feeling. "I would appreciate that."

"I should have just done it when Agent Barton asked me," he said, looking a little sheepish. "Guess I'm really not used to having to see a doc for every little thing."

"Crashing your head into a wall is not a little thing."

"You'd be surprised," he stammered, looking suddenly nervous. "How long are you going to be here Miss David?"

"Please, my name is Ziva. I must return to Washington Sunday. Why do you ask?"

"Because…well, I'd like to ask you a favor Ziva."

**A/N: Hope you liked it. Please let me know by commenting. Any advise is also appreciated.**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: Sight Seeing

Ziva wanted to get to NCIS before anyone else, and had even skipped her morning run to make sure of it. Of course she should have known that Gibbs would still beat her to the office. He wasn't at his desk, but the fresh cup of coffee betrayed him. With a shrug she hung her coat up and dumped her backpack in the corner of her cubicle. The she opened up her messenger bag and took the drawing out. It was just a piece of paper with charcoal lines and various colors smudged into the surface, but Ziva couldn't help but smile every time she looked at it.

It was her and yet it wasn't. The face was the same one that stared back from her mirror each morning, but with a little extra something that was hard to put her finger on. Ziva knew she was attractive. It had been one of the weapons she had used to good effect during her time with Mossad. Still, Captain Rogers had made her look like one of those sophisticated beauties that she admired in old movies, with a smile of gentle bemusement, along with an expression that hinted at mystery. The hair was done up neatly, with just a few wisps escaped to frame her face. That was artistic license, since by the time she had posed for him, her hair had been a wild cloud from nearly three hours of dancing. Mostly tangos and mambas with Barton, when she wasn't doing swing and jitterbugs with Phil.

The evening was the most fun Ziva has had in over a year. The meal had been superb, the conversation enjoyable (Natasha was quite amusing), and the show (Wicked) was one she had wanted to see for years. Ziva wasn't surprised, since Coulson knew what she liked, and very much wanted to made a favorable impression. The dance club in Queens was the perfect end to her day. She already knew how good Barton was, but Phil had surprised her. When she told him he almost looked disappointed, explaining that his main undercover persona, the industrial insurance underwriter, loved to dance. That Coulson liked to as well only added authenticity to the identity he had created. As things turned out Ziva got most of the dances, since Natasha said it reminded her too much of work. Given all that, it was a surprise that the highlight of the weekend for her was letting a man she barely knew draw a picture of her.

If she was honest with herself, Steve Rogers was certainly a big part of her enjoyment. Beyond the fact that he was the most attractive man she had ever met, there was something about him that seemed almost old fashioned. When he had asked her to pose for the drawing, the man had actually blushed. Her request in turn that he explain why he wished to do this only caused his face to get redder. After a few halting attempts, he stammered that it was one of his favorite ways to get to know someone. When she replied that talking was a more traditional method, he looked at her and softly muttered about not being much good when it came to talking to beautiful "dames." Then he quickly left after wishing her a good day. Later, when she googled the word, it made her smile.

Well past midnight, after she returned from her night on the town, it was Ziva's turn to be flustered; a sensation she would have denied was possible for her to feel when it came to a man. It was the result being subjected to the intense scrutiny of Steve Rogers, who divided the twenty-five minutes between creating the image on paper and looking at her. Usually, when a man stared at her for more then a few seconds, she had a pretty good idea why. Either it had something to do with her job, or something to do with his fantasies. With Rogers she did not know. His stated purpose to draw her was both flattering and something of a disappointment, because if she was honest with herself, Ziva would have welcomed a more personal form of attention. When he was finished, he thanked her, but refused to let her see the picture, claiming that the work was as yet unfinished, more of an outline of what he intended to create. When she inquired as to when she could see what he had made of her, the only answer she got is a smile and a single word.

"Soon."

Soon was the next morning, just as her short meeting with the very formidable Nicholas Fury was finishing up. The man had said all the right things about how important this new initiative was, and how her unique skill set was vital to making it a success. Ziva found him to be both persuasive and slight condescending, and she decided that a key issue in whether she took the job was the amount of time she would have to spend interacting with the man. In this case more was definitely not better. They stood up and she shook his hand. Maybe he wasn't so bad, she thought, exiting his office. Maybe her unease is simply the result of being unable to read his eye.

Phil was waiting outside the door, and while she was always glad to see him, Ziva had hoped to see someone else as well. He had promised to show her the drawing before she left, but neither had anticipated she would be leaving so early in the day. Apparently, somebody named Maria Hill needed the jet by noon, so her departure had to be moved up. The news was disappointing, mostly because Ziva very much wanted to see the picture, as well as thank the man who created it. Part of her regret was mitigated after they entered the elevator, when Coulson handed her a large brown envelope.

"Captain Rogers asked me to give this to you," he said, with a look on his face that told her this did not make him happy.

"Thank you," she said, opening the envelope and sliding the picture out.

She truly had no expectations concerning what she would see. On one hand, artistic talent wasn't something she would have expected from a soldier, and Steve was that from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. On the other hand, he didn't strike her as a man who dabbled. If drawing was something he cared about, he would give it his best. That being said, when she looked at what he had made of her with charcoal, colored pencils, and paper, she could not believe it was her. What she saw was…

"That's amazing," Coulson said, a touch of disbelief in his voice. "I didn't know Captain Rogers was that talented."

"Neither did I," she muttered, sliding the drawing back into the paper sleeve. Seconds later the elevator opened, disgorging them in the garage. As expected, there was a car waiting. Unexpectedly, Phil was accompanying her.

The first few minutes of the trip were silent. Ziva had a lot of questions, and only some of those were about Steve Rogers. Why hadn't Phil told her that he was going to be her new boss? Director Fury certainly seemed to be supportive of the concept, but what if that support went away two years into her job? Who else was going to be on her team? While she could certainly work with many different types of people, Ziva didn't know how she would deal with someone like Clint or God forbid Natasha. Since she doubted Coulson could answer most of those, she settled on one he could.

"Why did you not tell me it was you who would be my boss."

"Damn it, I'm going to kill Barton."

"Phil."

"I didn't mention it because there is another position Director Fury might want me for. Until I know for sure, I didn't want to say anything."

"That seems reasonable. Although it would certainly not be fair if you were forced to do something else."

"It just the nature of the business Ziva," he answered with a shrug. "Besides, the other job would be something I would also enjoy."

"But not something you can talk about. Yes"

"That's correct. And before you ask I can't really say anything about Captain Rogers either."

"At least tell me that SHIELD is doing something for his PTSD."

"We would like to, but it's not something he is willing to do, so far."

"Please," she snorted derisively, "do not pretend that SHIELD does not have rules concerning this, since it is true even of Mossad."

"I didn't say that," he muttered, swiping a hand across the back of his neck. "It's just that Captain Rogers is not strictly speaking part of the organization, at least not yet."

"What does that mean?" She asked in a dubious tone.

"For now, we are offering him training and he is getting to know us."

"Training? What exactly do you want this man for?"

"We want him to do what he does best," he answered, and she didn't get anything more out of him for the rest of the drive.

Which left her wondering the next morning exactly what that was. Probably something to do with his experience in the military, but when her mind tried to process what kind of work SHIELD would have for the ex-soldier, she drew a blank. He just seemed too nice to do the things they would want him to do. Of course she thought of Coulson the same way, so she was probably wrong about Rogers as well. Her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of someone whistling. She turned and Gibbs was there, blue eyes focused on the drawing she had placed on her desk.

"That's pretty good Ziva," he drawled, peering intently at the image of her that Steve had made.

"Yes it is," she answered with a nod. "Someone drew it for me while I was in New York."

"Is that so. Didn't think you were gonna meet any artists there."

"Neither did I Gibbs. It was the biggest surprise of the weekend."

"So does this guy have a name?"

"I cannot believe you!" She hissed, shaking her head. "I would expect a comment like that from Tony, but not from you."

"Watch it Ziver," he growled, but his grin ruined the effect. "Wanna know how I can tell it's a guy?"

"Please enlighten me."

"Cause who ever drew that liked what he saw," Gibbs said, with a certainty that she did not share. "Speaking of DiNozzo, you might want to think of hiding that away before he comes in."

"How could I be so stupid?" She groaned. Gibbs response was to raise an eyebrow. "I was going to hang it on my wall," she offered, gesturing back to her cubicle.

"Not a good idea. Tony sees that, he's gonna be like an old hound with a bone in his mouth."

She nodded, and slipped the picture back into her bag. "His name is Steve Rogers."

"SHIELD agent?"

"Not yet. And I do not think he will be an agent. It seems that he was in the military."

"Marine?"

I do not think so," she answered with a small smile. "His hair was not short enough on the sides."

"Nobody's perfect Ziver."

"Perhaps."

"Coulson coming here this weekend?"

"He said he would. He has been exchanging e-mails with Director Vance concerning information that SHIELD obtained from a trusted source."

"What about?" Gibbs asked, gaze suddenly intense.

"Possible terrorist attacks on the Navy. It was extremely vague."

"Come on, we'd better go hunt up Vance. He's gonna want to talk to you."

* * *

He took several deep breaths, fighting the panic that threatened to overwhelm what little equanimity that had returned over the last few hours. Steve had never been embarrassed at the fear he felt during the war. For one thing, a man who claimed he wasn't afraid was either an idiot or someone you didn't want around you when the bullets started to fly. On the battlefield fear was something he could use to keep his men and himself alive. So he learned to live with it, to keep that urge to give in to the horror of it all on a tight leash. Yet here he was, dreading the idea of ever sleeping again; afraid of what his screwed up head will conjure up the next time. It was just another dream he told himself over and over, after he woke up a shaking, sweat soaked mess. And every time he knew it was a lie. Because for whatever reason, this time his traitorous mind had summoned up his greatest fear.

At first the dream was all too familiar. He was in the suit, blue in the chest with the big star, white sleeves, and the black gloves. There was no moon, not that it mattered much to him. His superior senses allowed him to avoid the enemy most of the time, and when he couldn't, no one else could kill a man quicker then he could. It was not a thing he liked to do, but he long ago learned that war was mostly about things that you hate. It would have been easy for him to sneak past the first sentry, and his first clue that something was wrong came when he doesn't even try to avoid the guy. The second when he noticed that the man he killed (edge of his hand to the back of his neck) was dressed in green, with an American flag stitched on to his shoulder. He used his knife on the second, and after the third man died from a crushed skull Steve tried to scream, but the noise came out sounding like a heavy, guttural laugh.

He could see what was happening, see a fist that he had no control over snap out to strike a kid who had abruptly turned to face him, sending the broken body flying back like a rag doll. Finally the alarm sounded and instead of one or two at a time, they came at him in waves. Not that it made any difference, because rather then just shooting him they were trying to subdue him physically, and that just wasn't going to work. He waded into them still laughing, striking with a speed and power they couldn't hope to match, killing with every blow, his hands, arms, and face splattered with their blood. There was nothing Steve could do to stop it; no warning he could sound, no action he could take. He couldn't even close his eyes.

Eventually the survivors (those he couldn't reach) broke and ran, and then the shooting started. He scooped up a Tommy gun lying next to one of his victims and started to run, firing from the hip. The men trying to stop him couldn't compensate for his speed, and he never missed. He fired in short bursts and the bullets ripped through the men (boys really) who stood between him and his goal. Soon enough the sound of gun fire was replaced by screams and cries from the few he hadn't killed out right. Tossing the gun aside, he ran toward shadowy shapes that turned into a line of tents. The horror that had been clutching at his consciousness ratcheted into full blown panic, because just ahead was the familiar worn tent that he shared with his best friend.

Buck was ready for him when he burst through the canvas flaps, a pistol clutched in his right hand. But his friend wasn't ready for the uniform. It was a brief hesitation, only a matter of a few moments really, but it was still too much. His foot lashed out crushing Bucky's hand, the gun flying away. A cry of pain sounded, suddenly cut off by the bloody black glove that closed around Buck's throat. There was a horrible gurgling sound that seemed to go on forever, and Bucky's body convulsed wildly as he clawed at the arm that held him easily off the floor, while all Steve could do was weep and beg for it to stop. Finally the body stilled and the hand opened, allowing the dead husk that had been his friend to fall with a muted thump to the floor, and then Steve finally could see himself in the cheap little mirror hanging on the wall in front of him. The wail that was torn from him mouth was that of a man who had lost all hope.

That had been three hours ago. Steve had spent the first half hour sitting in his bed hunched over staring at his bare feet. After a shower he sat down with his pencils to draw the last image he had seen in the dream. It shouldn't have taken him long, accept that he had to get up and walk away every few minutes. It was either that or tear the table he was drawing on apart with his bare hands. Occasionally someone knocked at his door, demanding that he open it. He ignored them, making steady progress until the sketch was done. Then he stared at it as long as he could and turned it face down, because drawing wasn't about remembering for him, it was about trying to deal with the emotions that his memories produced. At the moment fear was foremost, fear that Erskine could be wrong, fear of what could happen if he lost that quality the man had seen in him, fear that maybe he already had. It was something he had thought about a lot toward the end, because no matter how hard you tried to hang on to your ideals, war had a way of stripping them away. The sound of a soft click caught his attention, and he turned to see his door swing open, with Agent Romanov standing there, arms crossed over her chest.

"What the hell is going on Rogers?" She demanded, before he could think of anything to say.

"I…uh…really don't want to talk about it now ma'am," he stammered, because telling her to go just seemed rude.

"That's too bad," she retorted, stepping into the room and kicking the door shut. "It's a quarter past five in the morning damn it, and I'm not taking no for an answer," she went on, after sauntering over to drop into the chair across the table from where he was sitting at.

"Look it's…uh just something I have to deal with," Steve answered in a quiet voice.

"Which would be fine if you…," she started to reply, only to abruptly stop speaking.

There were five of his drawings on the table between them, While he had turned his most recent creation face down the rest were in a small pile, there for her to see. Especially the one on top, which was the sketch of Ziva he had made for himself. She looked at him, one eyebrow raised, and when he nodded she picked it up. It was Ziva as he had first seen her, dressed in sweat pants and a short sleeved shirt, her long hair in a loose pony tail. The expression she wore was a mixture of annoyance (which he had gotten a lot from Peggy), and something like interest. He was careful not to think too much about what kind.

"This is good," Agent Romanov said after a slow perusal of the paper. "Very good. How long have you been drawing?" She inquired, partially out of curiosity, but mostly because there was no mention in the archive about artistic talent. Just that he was good at making maps.

"Since I was a kid," he answered with a shrug, his face turning pink. Natasha wondered if he would have the same reaction if she had praised his fighting skills, or his body.

"And during the war?" She asked, tapping her finger on the next sketch, which was a study of Peggy Carter. Natasha had never seen a photo of Carter from the war, but she didn't think the woman could have looked this good. But then again, she knew that Ziva was every bit as beautiful as Rogers had drawn her.

"Didn't have time to do as much as I wanted," he answered.

"But you have plenty of time now," she said, looking at the other two pictures.

To her surprise, one was of her and Coulson. They were both seated at a table, and she was dressed in the green skirt and matching jacket which Coulson had asked her to wear for Rogers' debrief. Coulson's expression was openly friendly, which was so different from his usual look that it took her a moment to recognize him. It's an impression, she realized, because Phil was too good at hiding what ever was in his head to let it out like that, even for Captain America. When she looked at what he had made of her, she saw no emotion, nothing to give herself away. Except for her eyes, which were looking directly out of the sketch, a challenge for anyone to see. The other sketch was a simple drawing of two men in uniform standing under an enormous Copper Beech, smoking cigarettes. She placed it carefully on top of the others, and then snatched the one lying face down on the table before Rogers quite knew what she was doing. If the one of her and Coulson was unexpected, this one was a shock. The face of Johann Schmidt, a.k.a. the Red Skull, dressed in Captain America's uniform. Then Rogers grabbed it out of her hand.

"So Rogers, you care to explain?"

"No I don't."

"Do I need to say it again?" She asked, but despite the fact that she said it without any anger, he just sat there hunched, over not willing to meet her gaze.

"There's nothing you can do about it Agent Romanov," he said, finally looking her in the eye.

"You're probably right. I'm not really in the business of helping people with their problems."

"Then why…"

"Because you're making life difficult for Coulson, who happens to be someone I respect." He nodded and straightened his shoulders, putting the awful picture down where they could both see it.

"I keep having these dreams," he muttered, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "Sometimes they're about things that happened during the war, or about...well Agent Carter. Tonight it was about Schmidt…or me becoming him."

"You know it's just a dream Rogers. Just because you have them doesn't mean they come true. You're not Moses." He chuckled at that, half hearted but it was something.

"Yeah," he said finally, putting those big hands on the table and looking directly at her. "It wasn't just that I was Schmidt, or that he was me….I…killed people…killed my best friend."

It's the last part that got her attention, because Natasha has read the report of that particular mission, and she was an expert at reading between the lines. And dealing with guilt. Actually, it was more like wallowing, something she would bet Rogers was pretty good at as well.

"It was a dream," she said slowly emphasizing each word. "It's not going to happen."

"I know," he answered, but in a tone of voice that was anything but certain. "It's just, a lot of the stuff really did happen…and it's not just dreams…"

"Then think about the good things Rogers," she said, in a quiet voice. "Think about her," tapping her finger on the drawing of Peggy Carter.

"I do ma'am, all the time." He paused, and his eyes were so focused, so intense, that it was a struggle for her to not look away. "Is that what you do, concentrate on the good memories?"

"No," she said in a flat tone of voice, "I don't have many of those." For a moment, there was a far away look that Steve was familiar with on her face, and then it was gone, like a door being shut. "You need to get out of here Rogers," she muttered. "I think it's time to start introducing you to the 21st Century."

"Ma'am. I'm really not…"

"Cultural lesson number one; You will find that most women will not appreciate being addressed in that manner."

"Yeah…that's what Miss David said," he muttered in confusion.

"You should listen to her," Romanov answered, with a ghost of a smile.

Some kind of music started to play, and it took a few seconds to realize that it was one of those phone things. Which belonged to Agent Romanov actually, or at least one of them suddenly appeared in her hand. She turned her back, and Steve noticed for the first time what she was wearing. Coulson had called it work out clothing, and while her top was lose fitting, with long sleeves, the pants were tight enough for him to notice her impressive…backside, and the bulge just above at the small of her back.

"I don't care what time it is Barton," she hissed into the phone, "just make sure your ass is down in the lobby in ten minutes." Then she stabbed to phone with her thumb and it abruptly disappeared again. "Did Agent Fitzgerald bring you a set of clothing yesterday?"

"Yes ma…I mean Agent Romanov, she did. Asked me to try them on. She said she just wanted to make sure they fit."

"It doesn't sound like you believed her."

"Kind of hard to, when she tried to follow me into the bedroom. I had to lock the door to keep her out."

"You know that she wasn't really interested in…"

…making sure those sweats were the right size? I wasn't born yesterday Agent Romanov."

"No. You were born in 1918 Captain Rogers. Which means I have to assume you have no idea what's going on, especially when it comes to women today."

"That's nothing new," he muttered, looking down at the table. When he looked back up, his face was bright red. "Would she really have…" he started to ask, failing to think of a phrase that was polite and descriptive of what for him was something people never talked about in public.

"I don't think so. She was on duty, so she just wanted a peek. Can't blame a girl for that."

"It just not what I'm used to."

"Come on Rogers, are you telling me that women in your time didn't notice?"

"For most of my life they didn't Agent Romanov, mostly because there wasn't much to notice."

"Maybe they were just looking at the wrong things. Get those clothes on, and the track shoes Coulson picked out for you. Be down in the lobby in five minutes."

"Where is Agent Coulson?" He asked, just before she shut the door.

"Meetings with Director Fury at HQ."

"Is he in some kind of trouble because of me?" He asked, face twisted slightly by his grimace.

"No. Fury isn't happy that Agent David knows about you, but she's probably going to be joining SHIELD, so that's not an issue. Besides, since she's Israeli, I doubt she knows much about Captain America."

"Israeli? You mean she's from…is Israel a country now?"

"Ask Coulson. I don't get paid enough to talk about that."

Ok…uh…ma…I mean Agent Romanov… what exactly are we doing?"

"You're going to learn about culture Rogers. Fitness culture. Your first lesson starts right now."

He made it with a minute to spare. While they waited for Barton, Romanov told him that millions of American ran on a regular basis to stay in shape, but also because it was fun. It was a hard concept to wrap his head around. In his time kids ran for fun, but it was always part of a game, like stickball, football, or tag. Or sometimes because a copper, or the priest, or your ma wanted to tan your hide. Unfortunately for him, until the serum Steve couldn't run a hundred feet without hacking his lungs out, so the only alternative was either take the punishment or make sure he didn't get caught.

After he got bigger fun never entered into it. While chasing down Dr. Erskine's killer gave him a lot of satisfaction, and training with the Commandos made him a little less worried that they would all be killed, the idea of running as entertainment never crossed his mind. Those ten mile runs with fifty pound packs strapped to their backs were about making sure that they could get away from the enemy if there were too many to fight. The reason Steve wanted his men fit was for the sake of survival, something they agreed with. He was pretty sure that if he'd suggested getting up at six in the morning to run for fun, the Commandos would have either laughed at him, or went for their guns.

Barton finally arrived, and grumbled something to Agent Romanov in what Steve thought was Russian. She responded with her middle finger, which doesn't surprise Steve as much as it should. Then they were out the door, with Natasha setting the pace, him right behind her, and Barton bring up the rear. In less then a minute they were through Times Square going south along Seventh Avenue. The first thing he noticed was how much quieter everything was at a quarter to six in the morning. Sure there were plenty of delivery vans on the streets, and occasionally they would run past two drivers cursing each other out, but compared to the normal pedestrian and traffic chaos it was like Easter mass. The second surprise was that Agent Romanov was right. Steve stopped counting the other runners he saw at one hundred.

While some churned along with grim faced determination, others smiled and waved at people they knew. Every outfit seemed to be different, with wildly diverging colors, hats of every size and shape, and shoes that were mostly brightly colored, with some hues that he wanted to have for his drawings. Within a short time, he could see that their abilities were as varied as the clothes they wore. While most of them set a pretty good pace, there were a fair number who didn't seem to care how fast they could run. Steve spotted some women (and a few guys) wearing what looked like rubber clothing that was tight enough to show…well everything. To his surprise, more then a few of the people they passed were on the high side of sixty, including one guy who looked to be Steve's actual age.

They ended up running twelve miles that morning. For the first part Steve just ran, his mind focused on the mechanics of lifting one leg and then the other, the feel of the ground through the amazingly light and comfortable shoes he was wearing, the thrill of his body working at something, even if the activity wasn't much of a challenge for him. If it was tough on Agent Romanov, he couldn't see it, and Steve was a little bit surprised that while it was no trouble for him, they were running fast enough to leave anyone else staring at their backsides, which was a thought he immediately regretted, because it made not looking at Natasha's a heck of a lot harder. He tried to focus on her form, but that really didn't help either, because there was just something about the way she moved that made it hard to focus on anything else. Until he stumbled over a curb when they finally turn off Seventh Avenue. Natasha glanced back at him with an expression he couldn't identify, and then dropped back until she was running right beside him.

"Damn it Rogers would you…at least make it look like…this is hard for you," she said between deep breaths. "People are going to notice."

"Sorry," he muttered, for more then just the little faux paux of failing to pretend he was a normal human being, and started to suck more wind, impressed at how Natasha was able to keep up, despite the handicap of a shorter stride. She gave him a hard look, then pulled a head again, until she was maybe ten feet away. Less then a minute later he felt Barton coming up to his left shoulder.

"Relax Rogers, she isn't going to spork your eyes out," the other man whispered, soft enough that Steve never would have heard him before the serum.

Steve gave him a look because while he didn't know what a spork was, losing an eye like that sure sounded painful. Barton just smiled, and proceeded to tell him in a louder tone that he needed to shorten his stride and stop pushing off with his toes. At the next street (Broadway) they turned north, and over the next five miles he tried very hard not to stare at Agent Romanov, and mostly succeeded through his admiration at her running prowess, along with being distracted by the slightly desperate longing for a memory of Peggy running the same way. Back then it would have been considered unladylike, but Steve was pretty sure that Peggy had never really cared about that. On the other hand, Colonel Phillips probably had.

Once they finished a loop around Central Park Agent Romanov started to run faster. At first he was confused (and had to be reminded to appear to breath harder again), but when Barton started to curse and he caught the little grin that she flashed him, he realized that she wasn't testing him so much as irritating the other man. That didn't stop him from asking her if this was some kind of evaluation when they finally got back to the building.

"No," she answered, catching the water bottle Clint tossed to her. "This was about getting you out of the building." After taking a long drink, she offer it to him. He took it with a nod. "SHIELD will want to run tests on you. It's standard operating procedure."

"What kind of tests?"

"Every kind that you'll agree to. So you should think about that."

"Why don't they just look at the records? The SSR ran plenty of tests after they gave me the serum."

"SHIELD doesn't like accepting second hand information, especially when it's pretty much useless."

She had read all the reports of course. He could lift in _excess_ of eight hundred pound, could run at a top speed of over forty miles at hour, could hear and see much better the average person. It was all so vague that Natasha was certain those documents had been carefully edited with view to giving assurance that the money spent on Project Rebirth had not been wasted. The lack of detail concerning capabilities and especially his limits wasn't surprising, but it was exactly the kind of information that Fury would want. It was knowledge she had an interest in as well, but not for the same reasons.

Natasha couldn't see how they would ever actually have to work together. Rogers had done most of his work behind enemy lines, but covert ops wasn't anything like being a spy, where you had to hide in plain sight. SHIELD would want to know what Captain America could do for operational reasons; so they could match the man to the mission.

Her need was more fundamental. With two exceptions, she considered everyone she knew to be a possible future threat. It was a habit she had kept to despite her present circumstances, because circumstances were subject to change, and the time to formulate a plan of action was long past when the bullet was coming for you.

"So if that wasn't a test, what was it?" He asked, bringing her back to the subject at hand.

"You think you're the only one who gets bad dreams Rogers?"

"So you run when…?" He asked, voice trailing off before he can finish.

"Among other things," she said, in a tone of voice that suggested things that made him turn red. She thought it was a good look on him. "You've been pretty much sitting in your room since you woke up. Physical activities Rogers. They make you tired. When you're tired enough, the dreams don't bother you so much. At least they don't bother me. Running or swimming work the best."

"Thanks for the suggestion Agent Romanov, but I'd have to run a lot faster or longer to make that kind of difference."

"There a pool in the basement, on the level below the firing range. I'll get the schedule cleared for the afternoon."

"I don't have a bathing suit."

"I suppose there's one around somewhere." She answered, with a frown. He tried not to focus on the impression that she sounded disappointed.

**A/N: Thanks for the great responses. Please continue to let me know how you feel about the story. Any mistakes that you point out are appriciated. I will be posting an edited chapter two next week, and a new update in about ten days. **


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine: The Discovery Process.

"Natasha? Are you there?"

She was out of the bed, gun cradled in her hands, the safety flicked off before the inquiry was finished. Her eyes rapidly scanned the room, confirming that all was as it should be. It was a very quick process, since her quarters there were little more then a bed, a bureau, a small desk, and the large foot locker for her various weapons. She had identically equipped rooms in every major SHIELD command center throughout the world, plus apartments in SoHo, Paris, Kiev, and Singapore that were similar in layout, if some what better furnished. Natasha appreciated familiarity.

"Natasha?"

It was Phil. Taking a deep breath she engaged the safety and slid the gun back under her pillow. Then she turned to the door, observing the flashing green light of the intercom. Her irritation quickly changed to anger when she glanced at the clock on the wall above her desk.

"Damn it Coulson, it's four o'clock in the morning. Why are you here?"

"Fury," he grunted, in a tone of voice that clearly conveyed how displeased he was.

Muttering obscenities in Ukrainian, she yanked her yoga pants from the top drawer of the bureau and pulled them on. Then she unlocked the door. She was pissed, and not only because of lost sleep. She was mad at Coulson because he never seemed to care about Fury's bullshit and she intended to him call him on it. Instead, all she could do was stare at him after she jerked the door open, not because of the frown on his face, but because of what he was wearing.

"I'm sorry…" he started, but she quickly cut him off.

"Your suit," she blurted out, eyes wide with something like shock.

The normally razor sharp creases of his pants were nearly gone, and his jacket looked like someone had used it for a pillow. The last time she had seen him looking so…slovenly was five years ago, when they had been forced to spend three days inside the exclusion zone at Chernobyl. The frown on his faced became more pronounced, and he made a failing gesture with his left hand which prompted her to stand aside so he could enter her room.

"I know," he finally answered, then did a double take at the words written across the front of her shirt. "You can't have manslaughter without laughter?" He asked, with his frown suddenly replaced by a small smile.

"Clint says I need to lighten up."

"You also need to appear a little less intimidating to your fellow agents Natasha."

"Why do you think I only wear this to bed?"

"But then…why…?"

"Where the hell have you been Coulson?" She demanded, annoyed with his interest in her shirt.

"I have spent nearly twenty-eight of the last thirty-six hours in meetings that included three separate groups of scientists, four different security details, two civilian contractors, and a teleconference with the Council. The remaining time was spent in transit to these various conclaves along with eating a sandwich and a muffin."

"If you're trying to make me feel sorry for you, you're not even close."

"During that entire time I was in Fury's presence for all but twenty-seven minutes and nineteen seconds."

"I take it back. It really, really, sucks to be you."

"Did you know that Fury talks in his sleep? Loudly."

"Too much information Phil," she told him, because she really didn't want to know anything about what Fury was like when sleeping.

"Sorry," Coulson offered after taking a deep breath, his hands pressed down along the front of his jacket in a futile attempt to smooth out the wrinkles "Get dressed," he finally muttered, "I need to speak with you and Barton."

On the way to Coulson's office, she told him about yesterday, that Rogers had dreamed he was Johann Schmidt, how she had intervened by the simple expedient of picking his lock, and the conversation she had with him about his dreams. She went on to describe the fitness regime Rogers had been put through; two twelve mile runs with three hours in the pool sandwiched in between, two of which had been spent actually swimming. The last part had Coulson frowning again.

"Are you sure that was wise, considering what happened to him?" He asked, in a tone that indicated he thought it had been pretty damned stupid.

"It was running Phil."

"It's the swimming that bothers me Nat," he countered. "We're lucky he didn't suffer a setback." She hated it when he used his 'scolding' tone of voice on her. She wasn't Barton.

"Set him back from what? Rogers has been sitting in his room with nothing to do but draw friends who are dead, or read novels from the 1930's. No wonder the man has nightmares. He needs to get out, do things, start learning about stuff. You need to stop worrying that you're some how going to break Captain America. He's a pretty tough guy."

"I hope you're right," he said, in a tone of voice that she wasn't used to hearing from him. Phil Coulson was always confident. In the field he always knew what to do, especially when the plan broke done and it was all going to hell. All she heard now was doubt.

"I did have a plan," he continued, sounding almost defensive, which was another surprise for her. "Not that it matters any more. I just thought Captain Rogers should be allowed some time to come to terms with what happened to him. I think that's the least we owe him."

"What are you talking about?"

"Director Fury has decided that things are not moving forward quickly enough concerning Captain Rogers."

"Damn it," she muttered. It wasn't really that much of a surprise, since Fury always thought he knew better, despite the FUBAR outcome of his first scheme to deal with Rogers.

"It's alright Tasha," Phil said, sounding more like himself. "I might not like it, but he's correct. We don't have the time to do things the way I wanted to."

"What the hell is going on Coulson?"

"Doctor Selvig has achieve a breakthrough. At 1934 Mountain time the day before yesterday, the Tesseract generated a positive energy reading for 17.254 seconds."

Which was not what Natasha had expected to hear. After Howard Stark retrieved it from the North Atlantic in 1949, he had worked on the thing nearly flat out for five years before giving up, and in the years since no one had done any better. The Tesseract had shown itself to nothing more then a blue inert cube. As of five months ago, after decades of research and boat loads of money, they didn't even know what the damned thing was made of. Now suddenly it was functional again, a possibility that had seemed increasingly remote until the arrival of Asgardians on earth. While she knew how desperate Fury had been to find some means of countering the next alien incursion, all she could think of were the uses the infernal device was put to seventy years ago.

"So what's Fury going to do?"

"It's complicated," Phil responded with a shrug. "I'd rather not have to explain it twice."

"Barton's going to be pissed that you woke him up for this."

"Since when has that been a consideration."

He didn't say anything more and she didn't press. When they got to his office, Barton was already there, sitting in the chair behind Phil's desk, playing Sudoku on his phone. They've both had the pass code to Coulson's office for years, but she didn't think it was right to use it accept for emergencies. Clint looked up from his phone and frowned.

"What the hell Phil, you look like shit."

"Shut up and get out of my chair Barton," Coulson demanded, in that particularly bland voice he used when he was not amused. Clint scrambled out of the seat without complaint. Natasha still elbowed him in the ribs after they had settled in the chairs in front of Phil's desk.

"Hey…what was that for."

"Do I need a reason?"

"Children, please pay attention," Coulson scolded, looking at them both in turn, before settling his gaze firmly on Clint. "I have a lot to tell you and not much time to do it."

"What's this all about Phil?" The archer asked, his eyes still on Romanov.

"I need to brief you about the Tesseract."

"At four forty-five in the fucking morning?"

"Director Fury insisted that you be read in immediately. At this moment, he is meeting with Hill in his office to do the same thing."

"Son of a bitch," Barton grunted, rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand. Then he frowned and shot a look at Natasha. "I thought you told me everything."

"What exactly do you know about it Clint?"

"Pretty much everything I do," Natasha answered. Which wasn't really much of a surprise for Phil. Coulson looked at Romanov and she just smiled.

"He wanted to know about Rogers."

Phil shifted his gaze to Barton. "Tell me."

"That it was Hydra's secret weapon when Rogers was fighting them. That they used it to juice up weapons we still can't match now. That it's pretty much been a paper weight since Howard Stark fished it out of the ocean."

"That's good intel for the most part, except for the last item." Phil commented. Baron in turn looked at Natasha, who shrugged.

"It was true when I told you Barton. Things have changed."

"And Uncle Phil is here to tell us."

"I could just send you to Fury," Coulson responded with what Clint had taken to calling that evil little smile of his.

"No," Barton said immediately, "I'd much rather hear it from you."

"Then please stop talking and listen," Coulson grumbled. Then he sat back in his chair with that unfocused look that told Clint he was going to have quite a bit to say. "I suppose I deserve this," the older man said after maybe half a minute. "Since it was my suggestion that we recruit Doctor Selvig."

He'd been impressed with both Selvig and Doctor Foster during his admittedly brief interaction he said, by way of an explanation. Coulson suggested that some fresh eyes might be useful in regards to the Tesseract, and after some consideration Fury had agreed. In the end the Director decided on Selvig. Coulson thought Foster was a better choice, but despite the fact that she was a genius (or maybe because of it, considering how well Stark had worked out), Fury didn't trust her to keep her mouth shut. Within days, Selvig had moved to SHIELD's Dark Energy facility and was working on the problem, or at least that's what the man had said he was doing. What Coulson saw was someone who spent hours staring at the object of his research when he wasn't holding muttered conversations with himself in Norwegian. In hindsight, they probably should have found a translator.

In any case Coulson conceded that he had kept those concerns to himself, because Selvig had a theory and the other scientists employed by SHIELD were excited about it, even though they couldn't really follow the calculations. The Tesseract did not generate energy Selvig declared. Rather, it was a conduit, drawing power from…somewhere. Exactly where was something Selvig didn't really know, or at least that's what he claimed. Despite the excitement over the theory, no one was quite sure what the next step was supposed to be, until Coulson sent Selvig interior images of the plane where they found Captain America.

Included were dozens of pictures of wreckage from the machine that Schmidt had used to siphon energy from the Tesseract. Within twenty-four hours Selvig produced detailed schematics of a device he claimed would do the same thing. During the ten days that it took to put the thing together, Selvig almost never left the room. When they finally turned the machine on thirty-six hours ago, the cube generated positive a energy reading for the first time in nearly seventy years. Then the machine exploded. At least no one was hurt he concluded, and Selvig was already planning what he believed was a bigger and better device.

"It doesn't sound like you're happy about this," Natasha observed, when Coulson was done talking.

"How could I be given our lack of knowledge?"

"Why is Selvig the only one who understands what is happening?" Barton asked.

"Exactly. Other then the explosion, I have no objection with the results. My concern is that none of the other scientists working with him comprehend how Selvig got to this so quickly. The ones I talked to are not happy about that. Now this could just be professional jealousy, but I think we need to find out what's going on."

"We're going to have to keep a much closer eye on Doctor Selvig," Romanov mused, drumming her fingers on Coulson's desk.

"Which is why Director Fury is reading Agent Hill into Project Pegasus. She will be assuming direct supervision of the program."

"Are you sure Hill is the right person for this Coulson?"

"What are your concerns Natasha?"

"She's never worked with scientists before. She can't order them around like they were junior agents."

"Obviously Director Fury and I are aware that Agent Hill can be some what abrasive. More importantly so is Maria. She will understand that a different approach is required with the personnel on this project. The bottom line is that Hill gets things done, which is really the thing that matters."

"She won't get anything done if she alienates Doctor Selvig."

"True. Which is why there will be someone on site who reports directly to Fury and myself. That will be you Barton."

"Come on Coulson, Hill hates my guts."

"No, she doesn't. You merely irritate her."

"Which is how she pretty much feels about everyone," Romanov added. "So stop whining about Hill."

"You're not the one who has to go back to New Mexico Nat."

"That fresh desert air will do you good," she replied, turning her attention to Coulson. "So what just what am I supposed to be doing while Clint is revisiting his favorite vacation spot?"

"For now, I'm going to need your continued assistance with Captain Rogers."

Natasha briefly fixed her attention on Coulson before turning to Barton. "Would you mind taking Rogers out for his run?"

"This is bullshit Nat," he grumbled, but when Coulson nodded he got up and headed for the door.

"You'll have the briefing materials on your server in an hour Barton," Coulson stated.

"How long before I leave?"

"I would say a week." Barton looked at both of them, then shook his head in disgust and left.

"What do you wish to know Natasha?" Coulson asked, leaning back into his chair.

"Assuming Selvig doesn't blow up his next project, what does Fury plan to do with it?"

"Based on SSR files and our own research, we believe the Tesseract to be an almost limitless source of energy. As for how that energy is to be put to use, there is already a paradigm for us to emulate," Coulson stated in an even voice.

"I didn't know that Hydra was the new organizational model," Natasha sneered.

"While there is certainly no intention of adapting that organizations unfortunate goals, at the moment we have neither the time nor the expertise to reinvent the wheel."

"I can't believe you're agreeing to be part of this Coulson."

"Granted that I don't like the idea of following Schmidt's lead," Coulson said with a frown, "it really is the simplest path to follow. Phase one would be to follow up on Doctor Selvig's breakthrough. If that does lead to something, then we go to Phase two."

"Making weapons from the power supplied by the Tesseract."

"Giving us the means to protect our world from new threats Agent Romanov," Coulson retorted calmly. "Which is something that we have needed since Puente Antiguo."

How could Natasha possibly disagree with that? She read the reports, talked to both Coulson and Barton about what happened there. Whether Thor and his friends were aliens or gods really was beside the point. She knew from his report that Coulson believed that they were friendly, but nobody wanted to be dependent on the goodwill of beings who had in the past accepted veneration from humans as their due. As things stood now, there was nothing in SHIELD's arsenal that would stand any chance against them, with the possible exception of nukes. Weapons powered by the inexhaustible energy of the Tesseract could be just what they needed to level the field. It was all perfectly rational that Fury would want to push this, except…

"What does Rogers have to do with this?" She demanded, because that part of the equation just didn't add up.

"With Doctor Selvig's project? Nothing." Coulson replied, with a minute shake of his head. "At one point toward the end of our trip, Director Fury mused that Captain Rogers would be in a position to provide invaluable expertise on the use of weaponry powered by the Tesseract. I quickly disabused him of the feasibility of that notion."

"So why are you staying here while Hill gets sent to New Mexico?"

"Natasha, I am not, nor will I ever be administrative material. That is the reason why Agent Hill as been placed in charge Project Pegasus, and why she was named Assistant Director of SHIELD."

"I thought that after Thor made his appearance, mythological code names would be discarded."

"Just the Norse ones. At least for now. As for Captain Rogers, right now I can only speculate."

"Fury didn't tell you?"

"No, and I'm glad that he didn't."

"Why would…"

"Because if I knew what Fury had in mind, I'd have to lie to Captain Rogers," Coulson interrupted impatiently. "Right now it's important that I gain his trust."

"You're going to eventually," she accused, a small smile playing on her lips.

"Perhaps." He shrugged with a frown. "But for now, I'm going to allow myself the illusion of honesty." He paused for a moment to rub his forehead, and Natasha was struck by just how tired Phil was. "Besides, I didn't really need Fury to tell me what he wants the Captain for."

"The Avengers Initiative?" She mused in a doubtful tone of voice.

"You know the boss. He always likes to have options. Besides, we don't even know if Selvig can make this thing work."

"I thought Fury shut Initiative down months ago."

"He did, though it wasn't his idea."

"So the Council? I can't say that I blame them. I never thought it would work Phil."

"Stark will always be a loose cannon, to say nothing of the inclusion of an alien of uncertain loyalty and a man who can't even stub his toe without putting a city at risk. None of them exactly inspire confidence, which is why in my opinion the boss wants someone who does."

"If that's what Fury thinks then he has lost it. He's not ready for this Phil."

"I know that Natasha. I also know that without some kind of purpose, Captain Rogers will probably never be able to adapt fully to his new situation."

"So that's what? Are you saying that we'd be doing him a favor getting him involved in Fury's bullshit?"

"That's what I tell myself," he muttered, his shoulders slumped. "Right now, none of that matters. Right now all I care about is making sure Captain Rogers gets himself right."

"So how are we going to do that?"

"We need to get him talking with Doctor Jennings. We need to find out whether Captain Rogers difficulties are physiological or psychological in nature."

"Alright. I don't think he'll go along, but we should try. What else?"

"Captain Rogers needs an introduction to some of the more basic tech. I was thinking a tablet and a phone would be a good start."

"I am not going to explain the internet to someone who doesn't know how to work an electric can opener."

"Of course not. I had you penciled in for hand to hand and weapons training."

"Phil…"

"Relax. That's not going to be right away. I think you were right about Captain Rogers needing to get out into the real world. And not just on scenic runs around Manhattan."

"Fury isn't going to like that."

"Leave the boss to me," he said, pulling a file from his desk. "I've been working on this for the past few days," he told her, handing the file over. "There are some problems of course, but that has more to do with trying to fit the square peg that is Captain Rogers into the round hole of anything resembling a normal 21st century life."

"So you didn't even try," Natasha commented after skimming through the first few pages.

"Most of it is normal," Phil countered with a shrug. "At least for someone with a military back round. People tend to let a veteran slide on explaining the details if that are reticent to do so."

"So how do you explain his lack of familiarity with…everything?" The small smile that formed in response was enough to set off alarms inside her head. Sometimes Coulson could be too cute. "What did you do Phil?"

"I considered some of the more typical tropes in conjunction with Captain Rogers status as an orphan."

"Please tell me you didn't use raised in the Amazon by indigenous tribes."

"That would require an inordinate amount of briefing time. Captain Rogers was home schooled by his mother's sister after the death of his parents in a traffic accident. She wasn't religious, but nevertheless believed that such things as the internet and television to be highly corruptive to young minds."

"Doesn't sound too bad, except that I don't think Rogers is going to be able to sell it, if someone starts asking him?"

"Then the obvious answer would be is not to allow such a situation to occur."

"What about Ziva?"

"That is an unfortunate complication," Coulson answered with a small sigh.

"Maybe not."

"Natasha…"

"Relax Phil. I don't do matchmaking, unlike some people I know," she answered with a smile.

"Are you ever going to stop throwing that in my face?"

"I don't discard any weapon that I might need."

"I have repeatedly promised I wouldn't do it again," he grumbled, running a hand over his face. "Talk to me about Captain Rogers and Ziva."

"He needs to meet people who aren't working for SHIELD Phil."

"It won't take long for her to figure out that something isn't right with him."

"So? It's not like Ziva can't keep a secret."

"Damn it Tasha, I'm not going to use Ziva like that," he growled, suddenly red faced with anger.

"You mean like you tried to use Barton on me?"

"It wasn't like that and you know it," he snapped back. After several deep breaths he went on. "I just thought…you were attracted to each other, don't deny it. I just thought you'd be good for each other."

"Exactly."

* * *

Coulson and Romanov had ambushed him at lunch, just as he tucked into his last piece of pie. The food was another thing he liked about this new time. Plenty of it, mostly better tasting then anything he'd eaten in the 1930's (except for when Ma had the time and money to make something special). He was feeling pretty good, which had more to do with nearly six hours of dreamless sleep then the meal he had just consumed. When he thanked Agent Romanov for her idea she nodded, then told him that they needed to talk to him about something important. They ended up in a small room with a round table, some more uncomfortable chairs and a burbling coffee pot, which Coulson made a beeline for. They offered him some, and when he said no the other man looked relieved. Then Romanov said something about becoming another person.

"Why would I want to do that?" He asked, trying to play it off as casual.

"Because you're not supposed to be alive," Natasha answered. "Think about it Rogers," she added with a trace of annoyance. "How would you explain a person reappearing almost seventy years after everyone thought they were dead? Especially considering the condition you're in."

"Hadn't really thought of it that way," he muttered, his big right hand rubbing at his forehead. "So how does this work?"

"The first step will be to establish your persona."

"Persona? Sorry Agent Coulson, but I don't know what that is."

"SHIELD's term for an identity that an agent assumes for long term undercover work. Think of it as a secret identity."

"You mean like Superman?"

"Yes. Only it will involve quite a bit more then a pair of glasses."

"Ok Agent Coulson, why don't you tell me who I'm supposed to be."

The way Coulson explained it, he was supposed to be just who he was. Same name ('it's simpler that way'), same parents (ditto), same Brooklyn birth place ('your accent is slight, but noticeable'), same military background ('straightforward is always best, when possible'). Of course there were plenty of things that had to change. For one thing, his date of birth was now 1988. He was still an orphan (both parents killed in a car accident), but instead of going to an orphanage, he had been given over to his mothers sister, who's name was Winona Barnes.

"Her name was Winifred," Steve corrected, his voice hard. "I thought this was supposed to be a fake identity, something you made up."

"It is. In your case, I thought that including familiar people would be helpful. If the name change bothers you…"

"I don't…I just wasn't expecting this."

Bucky's mom was a painful memory for him. While it had been Buck who'd asked Winifred Barnes if Steve could come live with them, she was the one who had said yes, accepting him into the family even though Bucky's dad was not happy with the idea of adding another mouth to feed, something Steve understood, even at the age of sixteen. Work was hard to come by, and they already had four children to provide for. He knew what kind of sacrifice it was to bring him home from the orphanage, but Winifred never treated him like that. If he heard the occasional argument late at night between Mr. and Mrs. Barnes over the cost of his medicine, she never gave him the impression that he wasn't wanted. She treated him just like her own children, which meant that she demanded his grades to be good, that his chores got done, and when he sat down to dinner that his face and hands were clean. Steve was required to toe the line just like everyone else, something that he expected.

What he hadn't counted on was that she would read to him when he was sick, hold his hand when he was waiting to see the doctor, and tell him how proud she was when he brought back good grades. She did the kind of things for him that a mother did for her child, and for a few months that confused him. Gradually he realized that even without an official adoption, Mrs. Barnes considered him to be her son. That was something he'd never hoped to have again, which made that day she stepped in front of a streetcar one of the saddest of his life. They had no right to use her memory like that. When he said this Romanov just glared at him.

"Phil is trying to make this easy for you Rogers. I really doubt your reaction would be as convincing if he'd used the name of someone you didn't know."

"We're done here," Steve growled, lurching to his feet. He was almost to the door before Coulson called for him to wait.

"I apologize if I offended you Captain," he said in a quiet voice. "But let me assure you that all this is necessary."

"I don't think it is. I get that you want me to be a secret, but I don't see a reason for it."

"SHIELD has spent nearly sixty years lying about you Rogers," Romanov declared in a flat tone of voice. "That's a lot of time and resources devoted to making sure no one knows the real story of Captain America."

"Why…what gave you the right to do that?" Steve demanded, stunned by her statement

"SHIELD is following the policy instituted at the end of the war Captain," Coulson responded, all the while glaring at Romanov. "One that was established by the SSR and implemented under the direction of Margret Carter. It was decided that any and all information regarding Hydra's activities would be suppressed."

"Peggy?" He whispered, his mind rebelling against the idea that she would want to hide what they had done. There was only one reason he could think of. "Damn," he muttered, swiping a hand across his face. "Because of the cube."

"Correct. No one knew what had become of it." Coulson told him. "Under those circumstances, keeping it a secret was deemed the safest course of action."

"So you're saying that no one knows what really happened? That people have no idea what we had to do to stop that lunatic from incinerating the East Coast?"

"At the time, it was felt that it would be impossible to explain what actually happened without referring to the device Hydra had used to make the attack possible."

"Don't worry Rogers, Margret Carter made sure that you were not forgotten," Natasha added in a cool voice. "The operations you ran against the Germans are part of the history…"

"You think I really give a damn about something like that Miss Romanov," Steve interrupted with a sneer. "My men risked their lives to stop Schmidt. Everyone of them was a hero. And now you're telling me that no one even knows what they did."

"Your men were not forgotten Captain," Coulson answered him. "Even though their exploits against Hydra couldn't be told, the Commandos did more than enough against the Nazi war machine to be counted as heroes. Peggy Carter made sure of that, even if they couldn't be remembered for everything they did." He picked up a small stack of files and walked right up to Steve.

"I told you before they had the chance to live good lives because of what you did. The proof of that is right here," he said, offering the files to Steve.

He muttered his thanks and looked down at what Coulson had given him. There were five folders, one for each of his men who had survived the war. He flipped open the one on top and the image of Gabe Jones stared back at him. Steve took a deep breath in an attempt to master his emotion.

"Are any of them alive?"

"I regret to say no. However, Jim Morita and Gabe Jones were buried at Arlington. I happen to be traveling to Washington this coming weekend. If you'd like, you could come with me and pay your respect."

"Yeah…I'd like that Agent Coulson," he answered slowly, looking down again at the papers the other man had given him. "If you don't mind, I think I'll go back to my room and read these."

"Of course. Perhaps if I drop by after dinner, we could talk about any questions you might have."

"Sure."

The moment Steve closed the door, Coulson turned to look a Natasha. "What the fuck was that?" He demanded, his face abruptly gone red.

"I knew I could do it," she offered with a smug grin.

"Do what?"

"Get you to use that word in a conversation."

"What are you talking about, just last month…"

"That doesn't count. Most people curse when someone fires a rocket propelled grenade at them."

"Fine. Now would you just answer my question."

"Were you ever going to tell him?"

"Yes," he answered, after drawing a long breath. "I just don't think he needed to know right now."

"Stop trying to spoon feed him the bad news Phil," she responded briskly. "Rogers can handle anything you throw at him."

"Perhaps you should consider what happened to him," he countered in an angry voice. "No one has ever had to deal with what Captain Rogers had been through."

"You mean being cut off from everything you've ever known," she said in a distant voice. "No one had to coddle me when I came to SHIELD. I wouldn't let them."

"I did try," he answered with a small grin. "I'm not saying you're entirely wrong Tasha. I just wonder why you appear to be actively trying to piss the man off."

"Because that's what Rogers needs."

**A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed. Please let me know what you think of the latest offering.**

** Irish. Skye: Steve will be meeting Gibbs very soon.**

**AngusH: Glad to hear my writing has improved. I'm going back over the chapters to tidy things up.**

**Marcus Rowland: Didn't know the spork was around for so long! Apparently Steve didn't either.**

**StarKiss666: Ziva is certainly a very dangerous person, and that fact will be incorporated into this story. **


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